The order to send paratroopers into a civil rights march with ended with 13 unarmed men being shot dead was a "good operational decision", the Bloody Sunday Inquiry heard today.
The decision to mount an arrest operation of rioters at the march in Derry's Bogside on January 30th 1972 must have been made after rioters and innocent civilians had separated, Major General Michael Steele said.
He maintains that orders on Bloody Sunday were not broken - a direct clash of opinion with his superior officer Major General Patrick MacLellan, a brigadier and commander of 8th Brigade who was in command of the British army on that day.
In his statement to the inquiry Mr Steele, who was then Brigade Major of 8 Infantry Brigade he was a senior staff officer at Ebrington Barracks, said: "I thought then and I think now that it was a good operational decision.
"Brigadier MacLellan had set himself clear operational conditions (for separation) before making the order and he had waited, and refused an earlier request, until those conditions were met.
"Once they were met, he gave the order for the operation to begin." Mr MacLellan has told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry that his orders were breached - and that this was a fact he had only realised in the last week when he took the stand.
Mr Steele believes orders were not broken, 1 Para had the go-ahead to deploy more than one unit and for them to advance as far down Rossville Street as the Rossville Flats.
Mr MacLellan who told the inquiry that his orders had been for the paras to mount an operation but to avoid being involved in a running battle down Rossville Street was broken. Soldiers became involved in a running battle after a several units proceeded, some in armoured vehicles, down to the flats.
The fact that the army logs do not record the full details of what had been ordered are due to a "mistake" by the logkeeper, he claimed.
As a Brigade Major he was responsible for writing all the operational orders and overseeing the brigade net.
PA