Shock and awe was a common reaction here to the grand slam vindication of Tony Blair's government in the Hutton Report.
The relationship between government, judiciary and the media in this country is different. Tribunals and tribunal reports are seldom good news for governments. Only in the judgment on Cabinet confidentiality in 1992 did the Supreme Court come down emphatically on the side of government in a manner similar to Hutton.
In Northern Ireland, old-fashioned qualities capable of putting institutions back in their place are still to be found. I savoured the Sunday Mirror suggestion that former Northern Ireland Secretary and confidential adviser, Peter Mandelson, recommended Lord Hutton to Blair. Few people here would have wished Tony Blair to come to political harm over Iraq, given his commitment to the peace process and the close partnership forged with Bertie Ahern. Nevertheless, there is little identification with the over-enthusiastic advocacy of war against Iraq.
It has long been a cornerstone of British foreign policy to stand with the United States in any crisis, regardless of what European partners may decide. As Ruth said to Naomi: "Whither thou goest, I will go".
It is clear that post 9/11, if not before, President Bush decided to topple Saddam Hussein, a dictator who defied the international community throughout the 1990s, and kept his enemies guessing. His unexpected survival was an embarrassing legacy of the 1991 Gulf War. The threat from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) provided the most persuasive pretext for war. If intelligence could provide extra justification, it did not need to be destructively analysed. The confused claim of a 45-minute readiness to attack was always incredible.
When a government is under pressure, as the British government has been since no WMD were found, the biggest mistake critics can make is to go over the top. The claim by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan that the government put out intelligence in bad faith in order to justify war went too far, and precipitated a vigorous, vindictive, and triumphant counter-attack. Did the BBC really deserve quite such a hammering?
Now the focus has switched to the quality of the intelligence, prompting doubt as to how many foreign policy decisions have been based on faulty secret intelligence. No one should hold their breath over the next inquiry to be conducted by senior establishment figures. Just think of it as a stabiliser on the good ship Britannia, smoothing its passage through choppy political waters.
In the meantime, the retrospective justification of the war is a mess, even if most people are glad to see a tyrant gone, and it has been a salutary example to others. The always doubtful case that Iraq was a present threat to other countries is in tatters. The neo-conservatives are in difficulties, in no position to advocate further adventures, with the Bush presidency facing a more serious electoral challenge than anticipated.
The British electoral system, which can deliver large electoral majorities, gives the administration a power not paralleled in countries where coalitions are the norm, or where there is a rigorous separation of powers. British governments are under less pressure to compromise, to admit or rectify mistakes, or to allow independent and critical inquiries. The establishment pulls together, with a ruthless efficiency that often leaves critics gasping.
We have seen many examples of this in Northern Ireland. The British Government has been able to sit so far on the Cory findings regarding serious allegations of collusion. It is privately admitted that the Finucane case is a can of worms. The Bloody Sunday inquiry, it is true, was conceded, and implicitly therefore the fallibility of the Widgery Report, but other such inquiries are in doubt. It took a long time to overturn verdicts on the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, Lord Denning's "appalling vista" showing the mentality of some people involved.
Defence ministers had no compunction about reinstating British army soldiers convicted of murder in the North. They will not allow any revision of second World War court martials, which condemned those guilty of desertion or other alleged indiscipline to ignominious death.
An Oireachtas Committee is at present examining the Barron Report into the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, about which the Irish government of the time was largely impotent. Co-operation from the British side was not satisfactory, despite persistent allegations of collusion, of which a more convincing refutation might have been expected. (A person claiming to be a former officer in the security forces in the North came to me with plausible details, similar to ones already published, which I submitted to the Barron inquiry, but nothing has been proven). The committee will have to consider whether there is any point in a full domestic inquiry, given that the perpetrators came from outside the jurisdiction. Many observers will have been impressed by the forceful analysis of Seán Donlon, who was in charge of the Anglo-Irish division in the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1974.
Anglo-Irish relations were different then. The British military brought to Northern Ireland lessons from conflicts in Aden, Malaysia, Kenya and Cyprus, mediated through the lectures of Brig Frank Kitson. It is doubtful if the British officer class held the Irish Catholic and nationalist population, let alone the IRA, in much higher esteem than native peoples and insurgents elsewhere, though because of the greater media spotlight they had to be more careful.
How far was covert encouragement of pliable and "friendly" paramilitary factions deemed a legitimate tactic? Did paranoia amongst colleagues of Peter Wright in Northern Ireland about the Wilson government play any role in maverick operations? Do more cordial relationships today inhibit any deep inquiry into the past?
We will be told that we need to move forward, and implicitly reminded that unadmitted State terror was only in response to paramilitary terror. Where such a blanket of protection covers over the past, it is little wonder that dissatisfaction will continue to fester. Do the high standards predicated by Lord Hutton always exist?