<HTML>Following is the content of a comment broadcast on 18th March 2003 by the Iraqi Communist Party radio, Voice of the Iraqi People, based in Iraqi Kurdistan: While the Catastrophe of War is Looming the Regime Terrorises the Iraqi People In his televised speech last night, President Bush has put our country and our people closer than ever to the catastrophe of war, something we have always feared and done all we could to avert. For months the US administration had been mobilising its huge military forces and gear, and now its president has declared that they are about to attack within the coming few days.   The Iraqi people have already suffered two wars, repression after their uprising in March 1991, the 12-year sanctions ordeal, and the horrors wrought on them by the regime. This war will add further to the devastation of the country and the loss of life among its people.      That is basically why we have been emphasising time and again that war is the worst option. The downfall of the current regime and the establishment of democracy in our country could be achieved by other means, which would spare the lives of the innocent, if there is genuine political will.      The Bush administration has opposed any other means but war, in spite of its  huge adverse impact - not only on Iraq and its people - but on the security and stability of the region, and beyond. The US has taken the decision to resort to war, in violation of international legitimacy as represented by the United Nations, and in disregard to worldwide opposition by governments and peoples.      Having said that, we neither ignore nor deny that present tyrannical regime is the principal culprit for dragging Iraq towards a new war, as well as inflicting  suffering on our people and  devastation of the country for the past 35 years. Thus, while George W Bush has signalled that war was imminent, Saddam Hussein's security troops and the Baath party militias have been deployed in streets and squares in Baghdad and other cities, to terrorise the people and break their will, by suppressing any sign of discontent or resistance, rather than take serious and genuine measures to avert the war. Any responsible rulers would have done everything in their power to spare their country and their people further tragedies, even if this meant stepping. The call for Saddam and his clique to step down and leave Iraq has not been made simply because US president set that as a condition to avert the war. For years our party has struggled to rid the country of this dictatorship.      In these terrible days, we appeal to our people, caught between the US hammer and the regime's anvil, to remain steadfast and patient, ready to defend their life and their rights, to persist in their endeavour to determine their own destiny themselves, and to establish the unified democratic federal Iraq we all aspire to.      We appeal to the friends of our people, in the region as well as the public opinion worldwide, to continue the solidarity with our people and exert all possible effort, before the breakout of war, to prevent it and thus spare the Iraqi people the agonies awaiting them. http://www.iraqcp.org/framse1/0030322ICPstatement(18-3-2003).htm </HTML>