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Jan I agree with your sentiment, but these things can't be compared, it's the same as when we constantly here this or that expenditure could pay for this many police, teachers, nurses etc.. that money would not be available for current investigations.
I hate myself for saying it but the families of many of those killed in northern ireland by our security forces deserve the same support from their (our) government.
What should never have happened was the amnesty given to the terrorists on the republican side.
Howard, #10 the army were being used because only a short while before there had been a total ban on marches and the previous weekend they had defied this ban, marched and rioted, the fear was an escalation of the violence and that additional bodies would be needed, i.e. it wasn't just policing a march.
Numerous barricades had been set up to prevent residents of what was effectively a PIRA republican ghetto (Craggan and Bogside), from entering The rest of Derry.
As to briefings, political to military and from command to ground the emphasis was very much, we need to present a show of force as since the previous summer when internment without trial was introduced there was growing dissent towards the security forces. The wrong tactic as it turned out!
