PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde has refused to adjudicate in the clash of opinions between the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) and Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body over whether or not the IRA is still holding on to some arms.
On Wednesday, the decommissioning body issued a report which contradicted the IMC's statement that it had received "credible" reports that the IRA had not fully decommissioned last September.
It appeared implicit in the Wednesday reports of the IMC and the decommissioning body that either the PSNI and/or MI5 had provided the intelligence to lead to IMC to express concern that the IRA had retained an unspecified amount of weapons and ammunition.
The IMC's report has caused a major political fall-out, with the DUP citing it as another reason why it will not enter into power-sharing negotiations with Sinn Féin and Sinn Féin claiming that the IMC has no credibility.
Sir Hugh Orde appeared to be in a position to end the confusion when he addressed the Policing Board in Belfast yesterday. However, he resisted attempts by some members to confirm whether the PSNI had indeed supplied the information and to declare which organisation was correct, the IMC or the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD).
"If people think I am going to act as some sort of arbiter between what I think is now various political interpretations of the same product, I am not going to do that for very straightforward reasons. I am not required to do it, it is not my place to do it, and therefore I do not intend to do it.
"There is no evidence or intelligence to suggest that the Provisional IRA have any intention of going back to any form of armed struggle, and I also repeat the point that, for me, the mindset was more important than any decommissioning, albeit decommissioning was important for other particular reasons."
Interestingly, Sir Hugh also disclosed that he supplied the IICD with the same security intelligence on the IRA and other paramilitaries as he had given to the IMC. Therefore, if the information supplied by the PSNI was the reason the IMC expressed concerns that the IRA still held some weapons, it follows that the decommissioning body, with the same information, came to an opposite assessment.
It must be added that Sir Hugh also said that the IMC and IICD would have formed their conclusions on the basis of a variety of items of information received from a number of sources, including the police.
The row over which assessment was correct rumbled on yesterday. The Policing Board meeting was briefly disrupted by about six republicans who staged a protest against what they called "political policing".
In west Belfast, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, flanked by senior party members such as Martin McGuinness, Gerry Kelly, TD Arthur Morgan and MP Michelle Gildernew, rejected the IMC suggestion that the IRA had retained arms - a suggestion also denied by the IRA on Wednesday.
"The IRA stuff is finished. The weapons issue is finished. It happened . . . and it can't re-happen. It's done," he said.
Asked did he accept other elements of the IMC report, such as its findings that the IRA was still engaged in intelligence-gathering and criminality, he said: "I don't accept anything that the IMC says."
Mr Adams said that the British and Irish governments must take action to drive the political process forward if the DUP persisted in refusing to deal with his party.
Meanwhile, the DUP policing spokesman, Ian Paisley jnr, called on the North's security minister, Shaun Woodward, to resign because of the minister's pre-Christmas comments that there was no evidence to indicate that the IRA was engaged in criminality.
Mr Paisley asked why Mr Woodward was not explaining his position. "It's quite remarkable that a man who is never off my television set and very keen to be involved in political activity and public activity has taken a vow of silence. There's some egg on face," he said.
SDLP policing spokesman Alex Attwood said the DUP and Sinn Féin were trying to exploit the IMC report for their narrow purposes. "The IMC report should not be cherry-picked. Everyone should face up to its positive conclusions and the other negative or neutral conclusions. The DUP and Sinn Féin refuse to face facts and retreat to outdated politics."
