LONDON -- In the May 20 Christian Science Monitor, Danna Harman reported from Iraq on the differences between the U.S. occupation of Baghdad and the British occupation of Basra. Titled "As occupiers, Brits bring experience," the piece argued that British soldiers "have the traditions and ethos that come with years of peacekeeping in which small numbers of men have close contact on a daily basis with local populations in places like the Balkans, Sierra Leone, and, most significantly, Northern Ireland."
Harman's piece reflected an emerging consensus that the British experience in Northern Ireland makes their soldiers unusually well-qualified for peacekeeping. "Three decades on the streets of Belfast and the backroads of South Armagh have given a generation of British troops experience their U.S. colleagues don't have," wrote Alex Richardson of Reuters back in April. "The long and painful experience in Ireland has given the British army much expertise in the delicate task of peacekeeping," argued Neil Munro three weeks ago in the National Journal.
It's true that during its 25-year campaign against the Irish Republican Army -- which lasted from 1969 through 1994 -- British forces became adept at operating in urban environments and executing military tasks in close proximity to civilians. But was Britain's venture into Northern Ireland really the peacekeeping mission everyone now claims it was? And does it provide any kind of model for an occupation of Iraq?
Recent revelations here suggest that the answer to both questions is "no." In the last few weeks, the British press has been filled with news about what many now refer to as "Britain's dirty war" in Northern Ireland. Most prominent were the "Stakeknife revelations," which broke earlier this month. For years it had been rumored that the British had a spy -- known as Stakeknife -- near the top of the IRA. The intelligence Stakeknife provided was believed to have helped British forces foil IRA operations and ambush and kill the group's members during the 1980s and early 1990s. On May 12, Scottish and Irish newspapers reported that Stakeknife was one Alfredo Scappaticci, who'd served as deputy head of the IRA's internal security team during the latter part of the conflict in Northern Ireland -- and who, it is now believed, passed information on to the British military at a price of $125,000 per year. Scappaticci denies the allegations, but the reports are being taken seriously.
If it's true that Scappaticci is Stakeknife, it means the British military must have turned a blind eye to his heavy-handed tactics during the conflict. As deputy head of the IRA's internal security team, Scappaticci -- recently described by the Guardian as having a "fearsome reputation as a ruthless psychopath" -- would, ironically, have been responsible for rooting out and punishing informers. Which means, as several newspapers have observed, that Scappaticci may have been allowed by his British handlers to get away with up to 40 murders.
That a British spy in the IRA was permitted to maim and kill in order to protect his cover has caused a storm here in Britain. "There is, of course, a crucial role for informers and agents of influence in any war against determined and resourceful terrorists," editorialized the Guardian. "But anyone trying to defend the way in which Scappaticci . . . was used by the army's notoriously shadowy force research unit (FRU) will have their work cut out." The paper went on to say: "Dirty wars are dirty. We are entitled to know how dirty -- and who, among the people we elect, knows what, and when."
The Stakeknife revelations have followed hard on the heels of an investigation into the British military's collusion with pro-British Protestant paramilitaries during the conflict in Northern Ireland. In mid-April, around the time the idea of Britain's unique qualification for postwar peacekeeping duty in Iraq was becoming enshrined in the conventional wisdom, the Stevens Inquiry, a commission set up by the government, released a 3,000-page report on the British role in Northern Ireland. The report describes the links between British forces and paramilitaries that were responsible for murdering Catholic civilians, as well as for targeting IRA members and Sinn Fein officials. Headed by Sir John Stevens of London's Metropolitan Police, the Stevens Inquiry found that British agents "were allowed to operate without effective control and to participate in terrorist crimes."
Meanwhile, a commission investigating Bloody Sunday -- when British paratroopers shot and killed 14 unarmed civil-rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, on Jan. 30, 1972 -- continues to hear evidence from former British soldiers and ministers. Bloody Sunday was a turning point in the Irish conflict, after which the IRA intensified its military campaign against British forces and many Catholics in Northern Ireland refused to recognize British authority. Yet it was only in the 1990s that Bloody Sunday once again became an open topic for debate in Britain. The original inquiry into Bloody Sunday, which took place under Lord Widgery in 1972, pinned the blame for the massacre on those who'd organized the march and alleged that some of the victims had been carrying guns. At the time, many in Ireland denounced the Widgery Inquiry as a whitewash, but it was not until 1998 that a second inquiry into Bloody Sunday was set up -- and it is still running. Some in the military have claimed that they received their orders to fire on civilians from Downing Street itself; for their part, politicians have sought to pin the blame for the shootings on the military. Whichever version is closer to the truth, the long-running inquiry has further exposed British uncertainty about the dirty war in Northern Ireland.
So it is strange indeed that at a time when the British are becoming ever-more confused about whether their campaign in Ireland was needlessly harsh (or even unjustified), commentators and defense analysts are talking confidently about the wisdom of exporting the Northern Ireland experience to Iraq.
This divide points to a misunderstanding about Britain's role in Northern Ireland that continues to confuse many observers. The British military was not a peacekeeping force there, standing between bloodthirsty Catholics on one side and bloodthirsty Protestants on the other, as is commonly understood. Rather, it was an occupying force determined to defeat the IRA and to quash demands for independence. The British presence in Northern Ireland was the latest chapter in a long conflict over sovereignty, territory and religion. And, as recent revelations suggest, it is no model for an occupation of Iraq.
Brendan O'Neill is a London-based journalist and assistant editor of spiked.
