The Bush administration told the Irish Republican Army on Wednesday that it should disband following the outlawed group's offer to shoot four men responsible for killing a Catholic civilian. The statement was the administration's bluntest criticism yet of the IRA. The call from the U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, came a week ahead of St. Patrick's Day when, for the first time in a decade, leaders of the IRA's Sinn Fein party will not be guests of the White House. This year the invitations are going elsewhere — to the five sisters of the IRA's most recent victim, Robert McCartney, a 33-year-old forklift operator and nightclub bouncer."It's time for the IRA to go out of business. And it's time for Sinn Fein to be able to say that explicitly, without ambiguity, without ambivalence, that criminality will not be tolerated," Reiss said. He particularly questioned Sinn Fein's claim that most IRA activities — including robbing banks and shooting petty criminals in the limbs — should not be considered crimes. He said that Sinn Fein should begin cooperating with the Northern Ireland police, a mostly Protestant force that once suffered heavily from IRA attacks, and today is being substantially reshaped with support from moderate Catholics.
The IRA, which killed about 1,800 people from 1970 until its 1997 cease-fire, relied on support from its Roman Catholic base as it mounted attacks on businesses, British troops and the predominantly Protestant police force. The group ensured its control of the toughest Catholic quarters by attacking petty criminals and killing people accused of helping the police. In some cases people were attacked for honing in on IRA criminal rackets or insulting IRA figures.