[A-List] UK state: Northern Ireland

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

As A-list subscribers will know already, Private Eye has been periodically
reminding us of this impending report, highlighting pretty much what was
already known regarding the dirty tricks employed by the empire loyalist
faction of the British state during its ascendancy in the mid-1970s. Conor
Cruise O'Brien wrote a dreadful op-ed for the Financial Times last week in
which he highlighted how the impending trial of the IRA personnel in
Colombia would be the death of Sinn Fein's participation in the "peace
process", all to the good of that nice Mr Trimble. O'Brien based his
argument on the fact that the Bush administration would never countenance SF
as a negotiating partner, given its apparent support for the suspects in
Colombia and its identification with these following any conviction, which
O'Brien takes for granted as a mere formality (as in, they are guilty of
what they are charged with doing -- not as a criticism of Colombian legal
processes). But the Barron report's publication and any subsequent
revelations could well displace any fallout regarding the Colombia suspects,
and further strip both Unionism and British state empire loyalism of
whatever shards credibility they still might possess with the "British
public". Meanwhile, a likely answer to Jane Winter's questions regarding how
much did British intelligence really know is that it depends on which branch
you ask. At that time the pro-Sunningdale Agreement MI6 was being leveraged
out of operational control of "security" in Northern Ireland by the empire
loyalist die-hards of MI5, who were also heavily involved in smearing Harold
Wilson and bringing into prominence a minor political player with great
potential -- Margaret Thatcher.

------

Britain faces 'collusion with loyalists' charge over worst Irish bombings

A report due out next week set to reveal the hidden hand behind one of
Ireland's worst terror atrocities
By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor
The Sunday Herald, 7 December 2003

BRITAIN is faced with being blamed for colluding with loyalist terrorists
this week in the worst single atrocity in the history of the Irish
Troubles - the Dublin and Monaghan bombings which took place in May 1974 and
claimed the lives of 33 people and injured 240.

A report by Justice Henry Barron on the bombings has already been seen by
the Irish Cabinet and Taoiseach, and has been forwarded to the Irish
parliamentary Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's
Rights. It will be published by the committee on Wednesday this week.

The Irish government says there will be minimum alterations to the report
but some names will be deleted. The findings of the report are likely to be
massively damaging to diplomatic relations between the UK and the Irish
republic.

Investigations by the Sunday Herald and the respected independent human
rights monitoring organisation, British Irish Rights Watch (BIRW), point
towards collusion between elements within the British security forces and
intelligence services and the loyalists who perpetrated the bombing .

Any confirmation that British security forces had a role in the bombings
would be hugely embarrassing for the UK. It could be used by critics of both
the Irish and British government to say that the UK carried out "an act of
war" on a friendly state.

The Barron report was meant to be released earlier but was delayed because
of the havoc that allegations of collusion could have caused during the
recent elections for the Ulster Executive .

Greg O'Neill, the solicitor acting for Justice for the Forgotten, which
represents the families of those who died in the attacks, said he has been
told by a number of sources who have already read the report that Barron
"has not pulled his punches".

O'Neill added: "They say some of his conclusions are quite stark .
[Relatives] will be very happy with parts of the report, and not so happy
with other parts."

The bombings took place during one of the most turbulent times in Irish
history. In January 1974 a power-sharing executive was set up in Northern
Ireland which faced intense opposition from loyalists . On May 15 the Ulster
Workers' Council began an all-out strike . Two days into the strike, four
massive car bombs exploded in the Irish republic - three in Dublin and one
in Monaghan.

While the Garda (the Irish police) had no prior intelligence of the attacks,
the British Army and RUC had a number of well-placed informers within the
outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force, the loyalist terrorist group behind the
attacks.

The Sunday Herald has the names of a number of loyalists suspected of taking
part in the atrocities - four of them were former or serving members of the
Ulster Defence Regiment, the British Army's "home guard" in Northern
Ireland. The four can only be identified by as Mr H, Mr B, Mr J and Mr M.

J, H and M were all working for either British military intelligence or the
RUC Special Branch, as was another one of the eight-man UVF team behind the
attacks, who can only be referred to as Mr D. A group of undercover SAS
soldiers, known as 4 Field Survey Troop, under the command of a named army
captain and a lieutenant were running M, B and J before and after the
bombings.

Jane Winter, the director of BIRW, says: "We find it very hard to believe
that an operation involving so many people could have been planned at that
time without the British intelligence services knowing about it. If we are
right about this, then the question arises of whether or not the British
told their Irish counterparts about what they knew.

"All the evidence available to us so far suggests that the Irish authorities
were taken completely by surprise by the bombings. Furthermore, it is
difficult to envisage any political or strategic motive that the Irish
authorities might entertain that could justify allowing the bombings to go
ahead."

The Dublin bombings also involved a level of expertise in bomb-making which
was far more sophisticated than loyalists showed either before or after the
atrocity. Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, the former head of British Army
bomb disposal; Commandant Patrick Trears, a senior Irish army bomb disposal
officer; and former Garda Commissioner Eamonn Doherty, one of the officers
who lead the initial inquiry, all agree that the 1974 bombs were more
sophisticated than any other explosive devices used by loyalists.

A former RUC officer has also claimed in a statement that a named captain in
the Ulster Defence Regiment supplied the explosives for the bombs. At least
four British army intelligence officers and an RUC Special Branch officer
are believed to have been involved in planning the attacks.

There have also been allegations that a British military intelligence
officer who may have been involved in planning the bombings had charge of
some of the forensic evidence from the bomb sites which was sent to Northern
Ireland for analysis.

After the Irish police passed some forensic material to the RUC for
analysis, the Northern Ireland police in turn gave the material to a
military intelligence officer who was later identified by G2, the Irish
military intelligence, as one of the bomb planners. The named British
military intelligence officer was in possession of the forensic material for
a number of days. He was a major with training in both bomb disposal and
intelligence gathering.

Irish army intelligence officers have long suspected that the bombings were
the work of British-trained experts because of the skill in placing the car
bombs in a co-ordinated pattern, the fact that all three bombs in Dublin
went off within 90 seconds of each other and because the fusing system
differed from other loyalist devices. Most loyalist bomb attempts before and
after the 1974 attacks are characterised by being crude, ill-conceived and
ineffective.

Suspicions have also been fuelled by the refusal of the RUC to allow the
Garda to interview a number of witnesses and suspects in the North, some of
whom were informers for the British security forces. Both the Garda and the
RUC had the names of a number of suspects not long after the bombings.

Questions have also been raised over whether the Irish government tried to
keep the lid on evidence of collusion between the bombers and British forces
in order to prevent reprisals against UK targets and the deterioration of
the security situation in the republic.

Senior loyalists, who have been interviewed by the Sunday Herald over a
number of years, have repeatedly dismissed claims that there was any
collusion with the British state in the 1974 bombings. They insist that the
plan was "a UVF job from start to finish".