Analysis: Politicians have to strike a devolution deal before IMC can talk about continuing demilitarisation, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
There are 15,000 British soldiers based in Northern Ireland. If full-scale peace ever breaks out here there will be 5,000 - a garrison force, so to speak.
That 15,000 figure has been fairly consistent since 1999 when Northern Ireland enjoyed one of its most peaceful periods. About 2,000 of these soldiers are located in Britain, but nonetheless they are part of the military force here and available to be deployed at short notice.
Not that most ordinary folk are complaining, but you would wonder how the 13,000 or 15,000 put in their days. Most of the time they are stuck in their barracks because, as is happily evident here in recent years, British soldiers patrolling the streets morning, noon and night is not the case anymore. You hear from time to time of soldiers engaging in exercises in country areas to prevent them going stir crazy.
Areas like south Armagh still have a visible army presence and there are also reports of army patrols in places like Fermanagh and Tyrone.
But such are the changed times that to see a soldier on the streets you almost do a double take. This year there were only two occasions when soldiers were heavy on the ground, at Drumcree in early July and, most dangerously, at Ardoyne on the evening of the Twelfth.
The question that obviously follows is, why does Northern Ireland need 15,000 troops?
It's the type of question one would imagine the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) in its second report published yesterday would have asked, and sought to answer. But it didn't, because it couldn't.
Three of its four members - its chairman and former Alliance leader Lord Alderdice, retired senior Irish civil servant Mr Joe Brosnan and Mr Richard Kerr, former deputy director of the CIA - met the press in Belfast yesterday to discuss its 56-page report. Mr John Grieve, former head of the London Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist squad was unavoidably absent.
The three IMC members explained that under the legislation setting up the body it could only outline the level of demilitarisation to date. Perhaps in its next report on demilitarisation, it will be able to provide answers to more searching and demanding questions it will have posed to the British army and to the British government about the scale of the military presence.
That will depend on whether politicians can strike a deal that restores devolution in the September negotiations in which the Taoiseach Mr Ahern and the British prime minister Mr Blair will be centrally involved.
If it doesn't, then it could be quite some time before the IMC reports again on demilitarisation.
The IMC will only have a meaningful role in terms of normalisation if the paramilitaries finally go out of business. If that happens, the British government will have two years to meet its demilitarisation requirements.
When, and if, that happens the IMC will have an important part to play in terms of overseeing 10,000 troops making their way home, and most if not all of the towers and observation posts being demolished and scrapped.
Under article 5 (1) of the international agreement that set up the IMC, it can monitor and comment on and, if necessary, criticise the level of demilitarisation.
But Article 5 (1) is only triggered when the acts of completion take place; when the paramilitaries provide Northern Ireland with the "enabling environment" to allow Northern Ireland operate with a relatively normal security system.
Which is why yesterday's IMC report was fairly anodyne. Because the acts of completion have not taken place it could only outline what normalisation has occurred. It couldn't state, if it so wanted, that the North under the current security conditions does not require 15,000 troops.
The IMC however was able to record that Northern Ireland gradually is becoming a more normal society: more than half of army towers are demolished; the number of joint police/military bases will shortly drop from 20 to 12; and the number of army bases has declined from 32 to 24.
The IMC can exercise clout in terms of monitoring the level of paramilitary activity, as was obvious in the row that erupted after it published its April report. But to use its muscle to persuade the British government and army to demilitarise, the politicians in September must strike a deal to restore devolution. And devolution will only be reactivated if the paramilitaries fade from the scene.