The threat to peace was and still is YOU, you assholes!

[RB TexLa]

Watchdog says IRA no longer a threat to peace

By Jonathan Saul Reuters - 1 hour 48 minutes ago

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The IRA's ruling Army Council is no longer operational and the group does not pose a threat to peace in Northern Ireland, an independent watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Army Council directed the IRA's campaign during three decades of violence during which the group was responsible for more than half of 3,600 sectarian killings in the province.

The bloodshed largely ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

The report by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) was welcomed by Britain and Ireland, but the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said it needed convincing that the IRA was "out of business" for good.

"Now that that campaign is well and truly over, the Army Council by deliberate choice is no longer operational or functional," the IMC said.

"We do not believe that it (the IRA) presents a threat to peace or to democratic politics," Northern Ireland's official arms watchdog said in a report.

The IMC said it was convinced that the IRA was committed to following a political path and believed it had abandoned "terrorist structures".

"We ... consider that the organisation's former terrorist capability has been lost," it concluded.

The IRA pledged in 2005 to disarm and pursue its goal of a united Ireland through peaceful means, but its continued existence has remained a concern among unionists who favour British sovereignty in Northern Ireland.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080903/tpl-uk-irish-ira-9e08e31.html