A war of attrition is currently being waged against the Bloody Sunday inquiry - not by nationalists or republicans but by elements of the British establishment offended by a tribunal whose stated purpose is to seek the truth about what happened on the streets of Derry on January 30th, 1972. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, announced the new tribunal on January 29th, last year, but it would appear the full implications of what will emerge are now causing discernible trauma in military and political circles.

For the past month the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph have launched a relentless campaign against the tribunal, claiming the inquiry has put the lives of soldiers at risk. This was in reference to Lord Saville's ruling that the inquiry would not grant blanket anonymity to soldiers involved on Bloody Sunday. The inquiry did, however, offer a "special reasons application" for individual soldiers who wished to hide their identity. Saville's decision is consistent with his stated aim of seeking the truth through an open, impartial and fair tribunal of inquiry. Headlines such as "Paras fear for their lives"; "A shameful inquiry"; "Bloody Sunday Betrayal"; "The heroes and the hoodlums"; "One law for butchers . . . another for heroes" have, since May 20th, greeted the British public on TV newspaper reviews and at news-stands.

Last Thursday, when all other national newspapers carried front-page news of the breakthrough in the Kosovo crisis, the Daily Mail stuck fast to its planned headline, "Betrayal", accusing the inquiry of placing paras and their families in "new dangers of reprisal attacks". It is no coincidence that the Tory media campaign reached a crescendo as the London High Court sat for a judicial review application by 17 soldiers against the ruling on anonymity. On the eve of the hearing, Col Derek Wilford, the commander of the paratroopers on Bloody Sunday, staged a carefully choreographed media performance by dragging several sacks of the Mail's "Don't Betray the Paras" petition to the front door of 10 Downing Street.

Lawyers representing the families and wounded expressed their concern to the British Attorney General in a letter dated June 4th, stating: "We consider the campaign to be in contempt of the current ongoing judicial review proceedings and the Bloody Sunday inquiry." The eminent human rights lawyer, Michael Mansfield QC, handed copies of newspaper cuttings to the three High Court judges presiding over the hearing. He formally registered his disquiet during the debate on anonymity. Mr Mansfield said: "I believe the campaign being run by the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph is potentially in contempt of the inquiry." He accused both newspapers of being involved in an "insidious and sustained" campaign whose aim was to "impede the establishment of the truth".

The families of the dead and the wounded are concerned by the nature of the campaign and have issued libel actions against the Daily Telegraph, which, on June 11th, printed the comments of an unidentified former soldier who accused the inquiry of incompetence in allegedly releasing his name and the names of four other soldiers to solicitors acting for the families.

Last Wednesday the High Court in Belfast granted an injunction against the Daily Telegraph prohibiting it from printing damaging material about the Bloody Sunday relatives.

Speaking on behalf of the families, John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother Michael was shot dead on Bloody Sunday said: "If, as some papers are claiming, the names of the soldiers have been passed on to the families and their lawyers, the issue of anonymity is, therefore, a nonsense. The real reason for this judicial review is not about anonymity. The ultimate aim of the soldiers remains the concealment of their identity from the public because they know their actions on Bloody Sunday were criminal."

The families are also concerned that the media campaign is aimed at weakening the resolve of Lord Saville and his tribunal. Lord Saville has already been described as "the virtual reality judge", a reference to his apparent past-time of operating an aircraft simulator. Mr Kelly believes we may be witnessing the beginning of a concerted effort to destroy the inquiry by using tactics similar to those used to destroy the Stalker investigation into allegations of an RUC shoot-to-kill policy in the 1980s and the release of Paratrooper Lee Clegg, convicted of the murder of Karen Reilly in September 1990. Cpl Clegg became a cause celebre in the Tory press and was subsequently acquitted and released. Already, such notables as wartime sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn, author Frederick Forsyth and two former Northern Secretaries, Sir Patrick Mayhew and Roy Mason, have joined the Daily Mail campaign. Writing in the Mail on June 3rd, Forsyth launched a scathing attack on the Blair government and the Saville inquiry, concluding " . . . no just and lasting peace ever came from betraying good men to appease bad ones." The families of those murdered on Bloody Sunday take particular exception to that comment.

Pressure was also exerted through the campaign to force the Prime Minister to intervene and compel Lord Saville to impose blanket anonymity for all soldiers involved on Bloody Sunday. Utterances in favour of military anonymity by the Defence Minister, George Robertson, created discernible unease among the families and wounded. The Northern Secretary, Mo Mowlam, has in the past written to their representatives stating that the government cannot intervene since this is an independent tribunal of inquiry. British cabinet involvement of any sort, especially by the Prime Minister, will raise the ugly spectre of the discredited Widgery tribunal, which many nationalists believe was operating to a clear political agenda emanating from Downing Street.

Yesterday's ruling by the London High Court that the Bloody Sunday inquiry was "flawed" in deciding not to grant anonymity to former soldiers has created a crisis for the inquiry. The ruling, coming after a sustained media campaign, is a worrying development. The inquiry must now see its very independence and integrity under attack. The events of the last month may yet prove to be the opening salvoes in a campaign where hype, emotion, and vilification will be employed as tactics in a dirty war whose ultimate aim might be to collapse the inquiry. The decision by Lord Saville and his colleagues to challenge the High Court's ruling at the Court of Appeal was not only inevitable but welcomed and supported by the Bloody Sunday relatives and wounded.

Don Mullan is the author of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday (Wolfhound Press) and has worked closely with the Bloody Sunday families in their campaign to achieve a new tribunal of inquiry.