The changing context of the peace process has changed the nature of the Cory report, writes Paul Bew
Collusion is an evil thing. Any resort to dirty tricks by the forces of the state is an evil thing. There are families in Northern Ireland who need and deserve answers. The forces of the state should not descend to the level of terrorists.
The peace process on the other hand is a good thing. We all know that, don't we? But what if the two phenomena - collusion and the peace process - are linked? What if they are parts of one, mutually reinforcing process? What if this is the way we brought our Irish wars to the end in the 20th century?
Consider the historical evidence. In the spring and early summer of 1920 the group around the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, decided to broker a compromise deal in Ireland with the Sinn Féin leadership. The basis of that deal was dominion status and partition.
The British constructed a carrot-and-stick policy. They went out of their way to emphasise the political benefits which would flow to any Sinn Féin leader who struck a deal. They also emphasised the pain which would follow if no deal was struck.
Tough and unpleasant men, like Ormonde Winter, were put in charge of the stick. These were often men of perceived bad character who frightened their more respectable colleagues in Dublin Castle. Ormonde Winter says in his memoir that his role was to hit Sinn Féin on the head while others offered it a "bouquet".
The others included Andy Cope, later Sir Andrew, who met secretly with Michael Collins (long before the truce) and carved out a new political understanding. It was a horrible time involving duplicitous intrigue and betrayal within both the republican and British forces. But it did bring peace to Ireland. Indeed, if there is any truth in Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA, a not dissimilar process may have reappeared again in the early 1990s, with a not dissimilar outcome.
Into this minefield the retired Canadian Supreme Court judge, Peter Cory, has just walked. Yesterday's Belfast Telegraph headline conveys the impact of his reports on collusion: "Cory blasts RUC, Army, Prison Service and MI5."
Few will be surprised that it has worked out this way. Some British government sources seem to hint that Judge Cory has been rather broad in his interpretation of his remit. Maybe so, but that is not the real reason the British government looked so queasy yesterday.
The Cory inquiries were decided upon at the Weston Park negotiations months before the events of 9/11. There is now a changed Anglo-American assumption about the role of the security forces in the fight against terror.
At Weston Park it was possible to believe that "Cory" was a debt owed to history which had to be paid before we all marched into a future of ever-more deep entrenchment of human rights and freedom from arbitrary state interference.
This happy vista has long since receded, and Judge Cory reports in a very different climate, a climate in which it is very doubtful if Mr Blair wants to see his army, police and intelligence services "blasted". It is hard not to feel some sympathy for Mr Blair. The Cory inquiries were meant to be part of the emollient lubrication for a deal (the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement) which is now a rather distant prospect. In retrospect, it all looks very similar to his unfortunate decision to promise an election last November in advance of convincing IRA "acts of completion".
The British government has ended up, yet again, delivering its side of the bargain without getting in return the movement it had sought from republicans. Sinn Féin is now better equipped to resist any further American pressure against its stance on policing. Yesterday the British government also indicated a certain unease with the way the inquiry culture has worked thus far. The government is aware that it appears to collude in giving a privilege to some deaths over others; in particular, over the deaths of almost 60 per cent of those who died during the Troubles at the hands of republicans.
Yesterday, both the prime minister and the secretary of state indicated their awareness of the problem. Mr Blair talked about the possibility of some form of truth and reconciliation body. But how might it work?
Judicial inquiries are no guarantee in themselves that the truth will be reached. Take the first great judicial inquiry of this sort in Irish history, that into Parnellism and Crime in the late 1880s. Many decades later documents have come to light and may still come to light which would modify the conclusions of the judges.
The Bloody Sunday inquiry might be a spectacular money pit with no end in sight, but it has significantly increased our understanding of what happened on that day, one of the most wretched in the recent history of the British army.
But the great bulk of what we now know via the inquiry is a function of the unprecedented release of sensitive documents. Much of the lawyerly activity is great drama but has been relatively unrewarding in the production of new knowledge.
The emphasis therefore has to be on the disclosure of sensitive material, no matter who is embarrassed, in the style of similar inquiries in continental Europe. What is startling has been the passivity of the British government. It has spent the last year hoping against hope that Cory would not be so bad after all. Now we are told that we are to have a debate about the truth and reconciliation concept after Easter. But there are those in the system who have spent the last few years resisting such a debate.
It was a lack of moral seriousness which has now caught up with us and has served to put off the possibility of reconciliation in the North.