‘The neglected cure’ to the Irish insurgency: intelligence

[Azor]

The author argues strongly that was not true: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) by the early 1990’s ‘had run out of road’ and needed a face-saving exit. Half the IRA was in jail and most of the rest fugitives living in the Irish Republic (pg.8).

It is my understanding that the situation was a stalemate prior to the Good Friday Agreement. In addition, I had understood that the Loyalist/Unionist politicians and paramilitaries were not consulted as equal partners, and that the Agreement was mainly between the PIRA and the UK, and that it was imposed on the Loyalists/Unionists by the latter. If the PIRA was truly depleted then why make any concessions and why not allow the Protestant Northern Irish to impose their will, as they had on the Catholics in the 1950s-1960s?

The author’s argument is that a rule of law approach endured…

I don’t see what “rule of law” has to do with “shoot to kill”, which is exactly what the SAS and special units of the RUC did.

…the best weapon in the counter-terrorism armoury was the intelligence war conducted by the Special Branch (SB). Not to neglect the role of the Army, who had primacy over the police for seven years (1969-1976); with 30,000 serving in 1972, dropping to 15,000 in 1998. The police grew from 3,000 to 13,000 in the same period (pg.146) and in 1986 the SB had 640 officers or 5% of the force (pg.206).

What about the SRU and FRU, both of which were vital to I/CI efforts in Northern Ireland, and both of which were military?

The beginning of the end was the PIRA attack on Loughall police station, the PIRA attack was identified – minus many details – and the SAS ambushed them, killing eight hardened killers. PIRA was totally clueless how the SB knew. Attacks would still happen and 85% of mainland attacks were prevented (pg.219).

There is a mass of detail. I would draw attention to him writing 60% of gathered intelligence came from agents (pg. 22), 20% technical, 15% surveillance and 5% routine policing & open sources (pg. 98). Arrests occurred 96% of the time (pg.23) and the specialist uniformed support unit (E4 HMSU) had an impressive record: 99.5% of covert operations confronting armed terrorists resulted in arrests (pg.220). PIRA volunteers knew in a year’s time they would behind bars or dead. The SAS who dominated covert operations along the border between 1986-1992 killed twenty-one of PIRA’s top operators (pg.231) and in 1997 in South Armagh, the heart of ‘bandit country’ a PIRA sniper team were arrested by the SAS and E4 HMSU.

‘Agents were the decisive factor’ and eventually surveillance, armed response and tactical co-ordination were added – a combination that forced PIRA to capitulate (pg.112)

Much has been written on ‘suspect communities’ and today is often applied to Muslim communities in the UK. The author argues what emerged, under PIRA leadership and strategy, were ‘counter-societies’ that harnessed subversion and political militancy to accompany and support terrorism (pg.69-71). The aim was to make Nationalist areas un-policeable and therefore ungovernable.

The criminalization policy, also known as “Ulsterisation”, led to the PIRA recognizing the criminal justice system and having to defend their actions in criminal courts (minus juries) under public scrutiny (pg. 157). Behind the scenes and yet to become public documents were seven reports by senior Security Service authors (pg. 163).

There are chunks of the book which are controversial, the "shoot to kill" episode and the book fades out as peace approached. Perhaps it is too early even today to place more information in the public domain?

I completely agree with the author that the intelligence-special forces combination was very successful in Northern Ireland. Whereas the regular Army and RUC units’ ubiquitous presence only bred hatred, the intelligence/SOF units inspired fear.

One would have thought these lessons could have been applied in Afghanistan and Iraq: instead of heavily-armed soldiers occupying public spaces, the Coalition should have been largely invisible, except of course, to the enemy. Yet regular army generals are in love with the sight of columns of troops and armor "securing" a town or city...

I would also say that intelligence alone was insufficient: there had to be the reasonable expectation that there were invisible and silent killers out there lying in wait for you or tracking you down. The hunters had to feel hunted.