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The students here are joined by students around the world, in France, in Kenya and in Israel.

They are discussing the United States' role in the world, racism and now military service.

Anu just asked the students if they would try to get out of mandatory military service and almost every hand went up.

One student said she was opposed to what is happening in Iraq.

Another student Lesley said she might consider service if there was another kind of war but not this war in Iiraq.

When Anu asked if anyone supported the war in Iraq, not a single hand went up, but when she asked who supported the military, about a third of the hands went up.

Another US student said that her government had given the people the wrong idea about the war, leading them to believe that Saddam Hussein had a role in the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Eric - a half-American, half-French student in Paris - said that while he opposed the war in Iraq and thought that negotiation probably could have resolved the situation, he believed that sometimes war was necessary.

We just got a question from Linda Tendwa in Kenya asking the American students if they all were opposed to the war in Iraq what they were doing about it.

One student said she went to a protest. Another student said that she was just about to turn 18 and was excited about her first chance to vote.

Another student said that many Americans and many students in the US weren't informed about the issues.

One of the US students asked his fellow students what was disconnect? Why were Americans so divided?

One of his fellow students said that she went to an anti-war, peace vigil outside the Walter Reed Hospital where many of the injured soldiers are being treated. There were also pro-war protestors there. It illustrated how divided the country was.

Collins, an 18-year-old in Nairobi, said that the students must do more than protest.

A student in the US, Ziad, half Palestinian and half Egyptian, said that Israel is an apartheid regime and asked Orit Shachar, a student in Israel what it was like to live there.

Orit said that Israel and apartheid are two different things and that they were working towards a two-state solution, and another student, Yehoyada, works for a programme called the programme.

Ziad asked the wall being wall being built there and said that it smacked of Apartheid.

Another student in the audience said that the Israeli students working with the Seeds of Peace programme were doing more for peace than two students accusing Israel of apartheid.

The debate got about as hot as the room on this warm spring day in Washington.

Allison, a student in Washington, asked the other students around the world what they could do.

Yarim, a 17-year-old Lebanese student in Paris, said the US must do something to bring peace to Iraq before it slips into civil war.

Yehoyada, a bsuiness and law student in Israel, said that everyone is against war but that doesn't explain what should be done. She said that the war in Israel is not a typical, conventional war with suicide bombers and terrorism. She said in Israel, Israelis and Palestinians must get to know each other.

Iraq dominated the conversation.

A student named Allen in Washington said that we must focus on the future.

Another student said that the US still has problems with poverty, democracy and racism and that the US must focus on its own problems.

George, an exchange student from Hungary studying in Washington, asked Eric, one of the French student about the student protests there. George said with such high unemployment in France wasn't the new law good because it would make the labour laws more flexible.

Eric said that protests actually weren't necessarily about the law but because it was passed without consultation. He said that now a dialogue had started.