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Tuesday 2 December 2008

Great Hatred, Little Room

Paying the price of peace

Jonathan Powell was the most durable of Tony Blair’s inner circle — and, in the affairs of Northern Ireland, much the most influential.

One of the most striking things about the world according to Jonathan Powell is his approach to the role of the security forces in Northern Ireland. He treats the Army, in particular, as though it was another paramilitary faction to be squared — rather than as the legitimate arm of the state operating in support of civil power. Having spent thousands of hours with the Sinn Fein/IRA leadership, he starts talking like them. Thus, his vocabulary is littered with republican terminology such as ‘demilitarisation’, ‘securocrats’, ‘collusion’ and ‘Volunteers’.

As Powell observes of Blair and himself, ‘we were of a younger generation and the war against Irish terrorism was not our war’. Precisely because he came from a services background, Powell states he was liberated from the shackles of excessive deference to the military. Hence the ease with which Blair and Powell agreed to a host of inquiries, starting with Bloody Sunday. But even in its own terms, Powell’s recollection is not quite accurate. When the Government decided that Lord Widgery’s report of 1972 was inadequate, he says, ‘I had to contact Ted Heath and others to let them know it was coming and no one complained.’

Actually, the Prime Minister was warned.Charles Guthrie recalls being telephoned by Blair and told him that whilst the Army would certainly not mutiny, this was a bad idea. General Sir Roger Wheeler, then Chief of the General Staff, and Lt Gen Sir Rupert Smith, then GOC Northern Ireland, also expressed opposition to the inquiry, as did the then Defence Secretary, George Robertson. They were told that the decision had already been taken. Even after this unhappy precedent, Powell still seems to be at the game of moral equivalence between the security forces and the terrorists — apparently toying with the idea of a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ at which all sides could confess their sins.

But what goes around comes around. The fashion for high profile inquests into national security matters, employed so promiscuously by Blair and Powell in Northern Ireland, looks set to spread. Slowly but ineluctably we are moving to an inquiry on Iraq — which, unlike the Northern Ireland Troubles, was very much Tony Blair’s and Jonathan Powell’s War. At such a tribunal, he could easily cut as unfashionable a figure as Colonel Derek Wilford of the Paras did in front of the Bloody Sunday inquiry. If that day comes, I certainly hope that Powell will be the recipient of more corporate loyalty from his successors than he accorded to his predecessors.

Dean Godson is Research Director of Policy Exchange think tank and the author of Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism.

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