Scotch Independence - the countdown

They had a huge enquiry, cost 195 million quid - go look in that to see what happened.

 

I'm guessing the ITV effort is what we are talking about - anyway I haven't read the Saville report, but neither has anyone else. I'm not sure about every single detail, but Cameron's apology speech was at least as damning as that movie...

"Mr Speaker, I am deeply patriotic. I never want to believe anything bad about our country. I never want to call into question the behaviour of our soldiers and our army, who I believe to be the finest in the world.

And I have seen for myself the very difficult and dangerous circumstances in which we ask our soldiers to serve.

But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.

'Loss of self-control'
Lord Saville concludes that the soldiers of the support company who went into the Bogside did so as a result of an order which should not have been given by their commander.

He finds that, on balance, the first shot in the vicinity of the march was fired by the British Army.

He finds that none of the casualties shot by the soldiers of support company was armed with a firearm.

He finds that there was some firing by Republican paramilitaries but none of this firing provided any justification for the shooting of civilian casualties.

And he finds that, in no case, was any warning given by soldiers before opening fire.

He also finds that the support company reacted by losing their self-control, forgetting or ignoring their instructions and training and with a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline.

He finds that despite the contrary evidence given by the soldiers, none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers.

And he finds that many of the soldiers - and I quote knowingly - put forward false accounts to seek to justify their firing.

'Crawling away'
Lord Saville says that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to the assistance of others who were dying.

The report refers to one person who was shot while crawling away from the soldiers. Another was shot in all probability when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground.

The report refers to the father who was hit and injured by army gunfire after going to attend to his son.

For those looking for statements of innocence, Saville says that the immediate responsibility for the deaths and injuries on Bloody Sunday lies with those members of support company whose unjustifiable firing was the cause of those deaths and injuries.

Crucially, that, and I quote, none of the casualties was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury or indeed was doing anything else that could, on any view, justified in shooting.

For those people who are looking for the report to use terms like murder and unlawful killing, I remind the House that these judgments are not matters for a tribunal or politicians to determine.

Mr Speaker, these are shocking conclusions to read and shocking words to have to say. But Mr Speaker, you do not defend the British Army by defending the indefensible.

We do not honour all those who have served with such distinction in keeping the peace and upholding the rule of law in Northern Ireland by hiding from the truth.

There is no point in trying to soften or equivocate what is in this report. It is clear from the tribunal's authoritative conclusions that the events of Bloody Sunday were in no way justified.

'Deeply sorry'
I know that some people wonder whether, nearly 40 years on from an event, [if] a prime minister needs to issue an apology.

For someone of my generation, Bloody Sunday and the early 1970s are something we feel we have learnt about rather than lived through.

But what happened should never, ever have happened. The families of those who died should not have had to live with the pain and the hurt of that day and with a lifetime of loss.

Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces and for that, on behalf of the government, indeed, on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry."

 

How about you go Google your stupid questions before asking them here?

51.5% of the British Army victims were civilians
36.1% of IRA victims were civilians
85.4% of Loyalist victims were civilians

Apology - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-128258/IRA-issues-apology-killings.html

There's plenty of anti-IRA movies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_the_Irish_Republican_Army