Large Rally Planned Saturday on Mall

Saturday's weather should be sunny, with highs in the low 50s, according to the National Weather Service.

Fonda, 69, an actress, author and peace activist who was vilified during the Vietnam War for making an appearance in Hanoi on a North Vietnamese gun emplacement, has previously avoided attending anti-Iraq war functions.

"I realized that I would provide too much of a distraction for the right-wing media," she told the San Jose Mercury News last year. "I didn't want to take away from what's happening in the movement."

Cagan, the protest organizer, said Fonda was traveling yesterday and was unavailable for an interview, but "Jane Fonda is definitely coming. She is speaking at the rally and marching in the lead contingent."

Fonda is scheduled to be joined at the rally podium by Bob Watada, 67, of Honolulu, a retired executive with the state of Hawaii whose Army officer son, Ehren, is to be court-martialed next month for refusing to deploy to Iraq.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is wholly unwarranted," Bob Watada said in a telephone interview. "The Iraqi people have done absolutely nothing to the United States. They've done nothing to deserve the massacre and the pummeling they're getting . . . the plunder, the torture, the rape, the murder of innocent people. It's got to stop."

Watada's son, a 28-year-old Army lieutenant based at Fort Lewis, Wash., "refused to deploy to Iraq after he found out that the president had lied to the country, lied to the military, about there being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," the elder Watada said.

Watada said his son refused to get on a deployment plane in June and spoke out against the war. The younger Watada has been charged with "missing a movement" and conduct unbecoming an officer, his father said.

Watada said he plans to participate fully in Saturday's rally and march. "I got my plane tickets and hotel reservations, and I'll be there," he said.