diarmidlogan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1112457,00.html

When Blair doesn't care about terror

Why is Britain so reluctant to track down the Dublin bombers?

Paul Foot
Wednesday December 24, 2003
The Guardian

Thirty-four innocent people going about their business in the streets
of Dublin were killed when car bombs blew up on May 17 1974. This was
the biggest terrorist outrage in all the Troubles. Yet the governments
in Britain and Ireland, both ostensibly committed to the war on
terror, have been singularly reluctant to track down the Dublin
murderers.

The report on the bombings last week by the former Irish supreme court
judge Henry Barron is a curious do***ent. He had no doubt who carried
out the bombings: two "loyalist" gangs bent on smashing the
power-sharing agreement reached at Sunningdale earlier that year. Some
of these men, such as the serial killer Robin Jackson and William
Hannah, who led a Dublin terror gang, are now dead, but others are
living in Belfast or Portadown. In nearly 30 years not a single person
has been charged. Why?

Two former British army intelligence officers, Colin Wallace and Fred
Holroyd, and John Weir, a former Northern Ireland policeman who once
went to prison for a sectarian assassination, told Judge Barron that
in their firm opinions the Dublin bombers were in harness with
renegade members of British security services. The judge concluded
that the evidence of collusion between the authorities in Northern
Ireland and the bombers "is not sufficiently strong". But he also held
that it would be "neither fanciful nor absurd" to find that individual
members of the security services could have been involved.

Colin Wallace, who worked for British army "psychological operations"
in Northern Ireland in 1974, and was sacked for refusing to plot
against his own ministers, is extensively praised in the report. He
tells me he still believes elements of the security forces must have
been involved. "It was a highly sophisticated operation," he says.
"There were roadblocks all over the place, and extensive surveillance.
I simply don't believe the gangs could have got away with it without
help from inside the security forces."

As the report also reveals, many of the bombers were active members of
the British army and police. Hannah was a member of a British army
regiment, the UDR, and the farm where the bombs were made and stored
belonged to a serving member of the RUC. These British soldiers and
policemen could hardly avoid colluding with themselves.

The Barron inquiry should be compared to the Saville inquiry into the
events of Bloody Sunday in Derry, two years before the Dublin
bombings. Four**** people were killed in Derry, less than half the
dead in Dublin. An enormous mountain of classified do***ents has been
disgorged to the Bloody Sunday inquiry by the Blair government.

Pressed for information on the Dublin bombings, however, the same
government has been coy in the extreme. Eigh**** months after he first
asked for all relevant information held by the British government,
Judge Barron got a 16-page letter from the Northern Ireland secretary
- and no classified do***ents. It seems that the government is
committed to the war on terror, but not so committed when the British
army, intelligence or police might be involved in the terror.

stephen horgan

Are there actually any classified do***ents?
--
Stephen Horgan, http://www.horgan.org.uk

"intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence"

dudalb

Coming from the "Guardian", which has a long history of being an apologist
for Al Quaida and other terrorists, this is funny.

michael adams

And coming from somebody who's so thick, that they don't seem to
realise they need to indicate whatever it is they're referring to,
that remark comes as no real surprise.

Moron.

michael adams

....

bogman

Ah bi Jasis, a pity it is that they didn't blow up old Diarmid Logan an'
all.

--
Citizens of Eire-Cyberspace unite, you have nothing to loose but your macs
and pc's

bogman

Ah bi Jasis, a pity it is that they didn't blow up old Diarmid Logan an'
all.

--
Citizens of Eire-Cyberspace unite, you have nothing to loose but your macs
and pc's

féachadóir

Scríobh Stephen Horgan <stephen@horgan.REMOVETOREPLY.co.uk>:

"Correspondence with the Northern Ireland Office has undoubtedly
produced some useful information; but its value has been reduced by
the reluctance to make original do***ents available and the refusal to
supply other information on security grounds. While the Inquiry fully
understands the position taken by the British Government on these
matters, it must be said that the scope of this report is limited as a
result." -Interim Report of Judge Barron, p20

--
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