LETHAL ALLIES : British Collusion in Ireland

[deiseach]

Unlike various other books, this book has been diligently put together. There is very little idle speculation , and nearly everything and everyone mentioned in it, was justifiably so! I can read as well as the next man, and I don't need amazon to tell me anything else. The use of the word bad apples by some on here, is an embarrassment . The bottom line is , that the state allowed scores of INNOCENT people to be murdered over an extended period of time. There are bad apples everywhere, the point is, when they are found , they are usually fucked out of the barrel , NOT allowed to continue to rot !

I was the one who used the phrase 'bad apples' and I can assure you I don't believe for one second that it was a case of just a few bad apples. The system was rotten to the core. And the recent HET stink suggested it probably still is.

[theskull1]

There's certainly a market for authors to make money in this space.

Couldn't the same be said for any book genre? And as already mentioned, the author is not taking a penny from the sales profit. All profts will be going back into the Pat Finucane Centre so that they can continue their work.

Its not always about finding the truth. Just need to be wary of that

Is this book not about finding the truth? After all, the claims made in the book are backed up with the evidence. What is your insinuation?

I insinuated nothing Nally. Far far too touchy.

I'd be fairly certain there was collusion during the troubles and would love to see it come out of the wash. I'm just saying that its healthy to be skeptical when "evidence" in published print is released. I've no doubt the Finucane centre think no differently to me about examining evidence in a robust way. If the research done for this book stands up to scrutiny and in time help brings about a inquiry into the goings on then, I'll be as happy as the next man. 

[Mayo4Sam]

Think theres a TG4 documentary about this coming up

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-and-psni-in-open-warfare-over-ruc-deaths-probe-29364013.html

Gardai and PSNI in open warfare over RUC deaths probe

Tom Brady Security Editor– 22 June 2013

A MAJOR rift has erupted between the gardai and the PSNI over claims of collusion in the Provisional IRA murder of two senior RUC officers as they were making their way back across the Border after visiting Dundalk garda station.


Evidence given to the Smithwick Tribunal by PSNI and British security sources alleged that a member of the gardai gave a tip-off to the IRA about the visit, leading to a fatal ambush on the officers.

Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were murdered on March 20, 1989 and the incident has been at the centre of a tribunal investigation for the past eight years.

However, the claims of collusion have been strongly challenged by lawyers for three named garda sergeants and for the garda authorities.

The difference of opinion between the two forces has now turned into open warfare. Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan forcibly dismissed any suggestion of collusion and accused the PSNI of failing to co-operate fully with the tribunal.

The garda authorities were incensed at the late introduction of "fresh" intelligence in the closing stages of the tribunal when the blame was shifted from the three retired garda sergeants – Owen Corrigan, Leo Colton and Finbarr Hickey – to two other possible sources.

At the final day of the tribunal hearings yesterday, the Garda Commissioner's counsel, Diarmaid McGuinness, insisted that these allegations were "nonsense upon stilts".

AMBUSH

He said PSNI assistant chief constable Drew Harris had told the tribunal there was no RUC intelligence at the time of the murders that suggested collusion by any member of An Garda Siochana in the ambush.

But 24 years later, the tribunal was faced with a "Niagara of intelligence", with Mr Drew swearing it was all accurate.

He told Judge Peter Smithwick: "The authority with which he (Mr Drew) has given his evidence, his rank, his experience, his asserted bona fides, his description of the process involved, are all paraded before you in order to compel you in some way to give weight and credence to these matters.

"This intelligence has been withheld from you. It beggars belief as to how you are expected to come to adjudication, not merely in relation to this intelligence but to the issue of collusion as a whole, having regard to the actions of the PSNI in this regard."

The withholding of intelligence, he said, "cast the gravest shadow over the bona fides, the willingness and ability of the PSNI to co-operate with the tribunal."

Mr McGuinness accused the PSNI of failing the families of the late Chief Supt Breen and Supt Buchanan; failing An Garda Siochana by not sharing this intelligence; and ultimately failing the tribunal itself.

Based on the totality of the evidence before the tribunal, there was no evidence of any garda collusion and that was the submission of the Garda Commissioner, he added.

Counsel for the PSNI, Mark Robinson had earlier argued that the force had given every help it could to the tribunal.

The judge's final report is expected in the late autumn.


Irish Independent

[Nally Stand]

I'd be fairly certain there was collusion during the troubles and would love to see it come out of the wash. I'm just saying that its healthy to be skeptical when "evidence" in published print is released. I've no doubt the Finucane centre think no differently to me about examining evidence in a robust way. If the research done for this book stands up to scrutiny and in time help brings about a inquiry into the goings on then, I'll be as happy as the next man.

Fairly certain? I'd love to know what more proof you need. I can only assume that you haven't read the book going by that comment. It's healthy to be skeptical indeed, but questioning something's existence despite years of proof emerging? Collusion is not under dispute. The people knew it was happening, but if living through it were not enough to convince you, surely the Stevens Report (well, the 19 pages of the 20,000 page report which the British didn't withhold from the public) should be all the proof you need. Some quotes from that report which merely focused on two killings:

4.7 I conclude there was collusion in both murders and the circumstances surrounding them. Collusion is evidenced in many ways. This ranges from the willful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence, through to the extreme of agents being involved in murder.

4.8 The withholding of information impedes the prevention of crime and the arrest of suspects. The unlawful involvement of agents in murder implies that the security forces sanction killings.

4.9 My three Enquiries have found all these elements of collusion to be present. The co-ordination, dissemination and sharing of intelligence were poor. Informants and agents were allowed to operate without effective control and to participate in terrorist crimes. Nationalists were known to be targeted but were not properly warned or protected. Crucial information was withheld from Senior Investigating Officers. Important evidence was neither exploited nor preserved.

2.18 A further aspect of my Enquiry was how the RUC dealt with threat intelligence. This included examination and analysis of RUC records to determine whether both sides of the community were dealt with in equal measure. They were not."

Even in recent times, collusion was evident in leaks from the Stevens team and the fire which destroyed the offices of the Stevens team. In his words "There was a clear breach of security before the planned arrest of Nelson and other senior loyalists. Information was leaked to the loyalist paramilitaries and the press. This resulted in the operation being aborted. Nelson was advised by his FRU handlers to leave home the night before. A new date was set for the operation on account of the leak. The night before the new operation my Incident room was destroyed by fire. This incident, in my opinion, has never been adequately investigated and I believe it was a deliberate act of arson."

The smoke alarms and heat sensors didn't work, there was no water in the fire protection system and the telephone lines had been mysteriously cut. The Sunday Times later published claims from a former British Army FRU member that his unit was behind the fire and british defence secretary Geoff Hoon went so far as to obtain an injunction in the High Court in London banning the paper from publishing any more allegations.

Only from investigating two murders, Stevens said he believed he had enough evidence to convict 25 senior military personnel.

Recently on TV, Ken Maguinness revealed how he personally reported to Maggie Thatcher the names of the IRA volunteers whom he believed to have been involved in the attack on British soldiers on a bus near Ballygawley. Within ten days, they were shot dead by the SAS at Drumnakilly. I could go on.

[EC Unique]

Interesting article..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2508511/Exposed-The-army-black-ops-squad-ordered-murder-IRAs-players.html

[Nally Stand]

Anybody see Vincent Browne last night? That former diplomat Noel Dorr made my skin crawl. An utterly contemptable being, who typified the Dublin Government's attitude to British Collusion in Ireland. See no evil , hear no evil, speak no evil. Went something along the lines of...

VB: What about collusion Noel?
Noel: "Alleged collusion"

VB: Well what about the "alleged" collusion, Noel?
Noel: Well I wouldn't know anything about that so no point in me commenting, but I know all about the IRA bombing England and about the collusion in Dundalk with the IRA in the murders of two RUC men.

VB: Wasn't that "alleged" too, and isn't that more a case of a couple of rogue Gardaí rather than an instutionalised state policy of collusion, and isn't there evidence against them seemingly very poor?
Noel: Eh, well ok

VB: What about relations between the two countries Noel?
Noel:I think it's closer than ever and there were problems over the years due to the north, that has all been solved and the Queen came here and it was so emotional.

Anne Cadwallader: I just listened to Noel say that the issues around the north have been solved. Well I saw emotion when Queen Elizabeth came to Ireland too. I stood on Talbott St with the families of the Dublin & Monaghan bombings when the visit happened, which was on the anniversary of the bombings, and they were crying out of sheer pain and frustration that after all these years and despite these two states supposedly being such good friends and having such a close relationship and trusting eachother, and the talk about mutual respect, that Britain still refuses to hand over their files on the bombings, to help these grieving families find closure.
Noel: But she came over, and she bowed her head. And she spoke a few words in Irish. And ohhhhhh the accent she spoke them in!! But I can't talk about collusion because I don't know"

[Maguire01]

A lot on this board would rather believe a programme that contained the lies of two alcoholics with an axe to grind, than a book on collusion backed up with facts.

So only one of the two can be true then? Either Adams was in the IRA or there was state collusion?

And quite telling that it's the lies (not even the allegations) of two alcoholics (might as well play the man).

[muppet]

Anybody see Vincent Browne last night? That former diplomat Noel Dorr made my skin crawl. An utterly contemptable being, who typified the Dublin Government's attitude to British Collusion in Ireland. See no evil , hear no evil, speak no evil. Went something along the lines of...

VB: What about collusion Noel?
Noel: "Alleged collusion"

VB: Well what about the "alleged" collusion, Noel?
Noel: Well I wouldn't know anything about that so no point in me commenting, but I know all about the IRA bombing England and about the collusion in Dundalk with the IRA in the murders of two RUC men.

VB: Wasn't that "alleged" too, and isn't that more a case of a couple of rogue Gardaí rather than an instutionalised state policy of collusion, and isn't there evidence against them seemingly very poor?
Noel: Eh, well ok

VB: What about relations between the two countries Noel?
Noel:I think it's closer than ever and there were problems over the years due to the north, that has all been solved and the Queen came here and it was so emotional.

Anne Cadwallader: I just listened to Noel say that the issues around the north have been solved. Well I saw emotion when Queen Elizabeth came to Ireland too. I stood on Talbott St with the families of the Dublin & Monaghan bombings when the visit happened, which was on the anniversary of the bombings, and they were crying out of sheer pain and frustration that after all these years and despite these two states supposedly being such good friends and having such a close relationship and trusting eachother, and the talk about mutual respect, that Britain still refuses to hand over their files on the bombings, to help these grieving families find closure.
Noel: But she came over, and she bowed her head. And she spoke a few words in Irish. And ohhhhhh the accent she spoke them in!! But I can't talk about collusion because I don't know"

The first bit in bold is an amazing statement if he said that. Is giving evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal?

The 2nd bit in bold is so full of hyperbolic nonsense it actually undermines the various serious point she was attempting to make. If the book is written like that I will not be getting it.

[Nally Stand]

All the above is paraphrasing, but is the gist of what was said. As for the book, it is an astonishingly detailed, evidence based account. Evidence stands on it's own merit. And if it was OK for Noel Dorr to slabber about the emotion that "people" felt at hearing Queen Elizabeth speaking Irish ("and in the accent she spoke it in"), then Anne Cadwallader was well within her rights to speak about the emotional anguish of the victims families (whom she had worked with for around twelve years in producing her book) who held a silent and dignified protest on the day and who have a damn good reason to be feeling pain she spoke of. If she stood with them on the anniversary and saw them crying, then she has every right to say so. They might not be IRA victims but media references to their suffering should still be tolerated in the same way at least! If her speaking of this is enough for you to not want to buy a book outlining overwhelming evidence of collusion, then I suspect you likely had no intention of buying it anyway. I'd highly recommend you do though.

[ziggy90]

I attempted to get the loan of this book from a public library in Birmingham yesterday, I was told they had no trace of any such publication. Anyone know why?

[Count 10]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEjqpRVfQSc

[Maguire01]

Anne Cadwallader: I just listened to Noel say that the issues around the north have been solved. Well I saw emotion when Queen Elizabeth came to Ireland too. I stood on Talbott St with the families of the Dublin & Monaghan bombings when the visit happened, which was on the anniversary of the bombings, and they were crying out of sheer pain and frustration that after all these years and despite these two states supposedly being such good friends and having such a close relationship and trusting eachother, and the talk about mutual respect, that Britain still refuses to hand over their files on the bombings, to help these grieving families find closure.

They must think McGuinness really sold out when he met her only a year later... and still no files on the Monaghan / Dublin bombings.

[Oraisteach]

Wish I had a link to the Vincent Browne show.

As for Lethal Allies, I'd strongly recommend it.  What I liked most about it was its measured and meticulous analysis, a careful join-the-dots that leaves little room for ambiguity and misinterpretation.  In fact, its strongest characteristic is a quality that some might dislike—its deliberate repetitiveness.  But the repetition is essential in reinforcing the carefully woven fabric that is this book.  The author carefully follows the threads of victims, interweaving the victims with their murderers, linking ballistic evidence to killers and then to victims.  I like, too, her flowcharts that join events and people and weapons.

Further, her painstaking connecting of the murder gang to the security forces leaves no doubt about collusion.  All that remains is a question of degree.  Just how systemic was that collusion? It was certainly more than the popular "few bad apples." The authorities' mishandling and loss (read deliberate bungling) of evidence as well as failure to investigate according to rudimentary forensic protocol casts a dark pall over the integrity of those charged with upholding justice.  Not a shocking revelation to those of us who lived through it.

Though Cadwallader veers away from the emotional, at times she sprinkles occasional remarks from the victims' families, and though such interjections do little to bolster her central thesis, they serve to remind us that we readers are dealing not with raw statistics but with real people, people still struggling to cope.

As a post script, a couple of things struck me.  I picked up the book expecting an overt SF blas, which really wouldn't have bothered me, but I was surprised that not only did the book lack a Sinn Fein bias, some of its central characters, apart from the victims and their UVF/UDR killers of course, were SDLP reps and Fathers Murray and Faul.

And on a personal note, I was jolted to discover that one of the victims was almost certainly the father of a girl I dated briefly during the early 70s. 

[Oraisteach]

Thanks for the link, Sludden, but being in the states, I can access it.  Don't know the nuances of body-swerving an Irish IP address.

[muppet]

All the above is paraphrasing, but is the gist of what was said. As for the book, it is an astonishingly detailed, evidence based account. Evidence stands on it's own merit. And if it was OK for Noel Dorr to slabber about the emotion that "people" felt at hearing Queen Elizabeth speaking Irish ("and in the accent she spoke it in"), then Anne Cadwallader was well within her rights to speak about the emotional anguish of the victims families (whom she had worked with for around twelve years in producing her book) who held a silent and dignified protest on the day and who have a damn good reason to be feeling pain she spoke of. If she stood with them on the anniversary and saw them crying, then she has every right to say so. They might not be IRA victims but media references to their suffering should still be tolerated in the same way at least! If her speaking of this is enough for you to not want to buy a book outlining overwhelming evidence of collusion, then I suspect you likely had no intention of buying it anyway. I'd highly recommend you do though.

Fair enough.

But it isn't ok for this Noel Dorr to speak as you say he did. To dismiss British collusion, claim he knew all about Gárda collusion and then talk about emotion is obviously absurd of him. But it can't be used as an excuse to justify the same treatment to the opposing argument.