There was mud on the general's shoes and anxiety in the air when the carefully planned 'historic day' turned into a nightmare. Dan Keenan Northern News Editor and Mark Brennock Political Correspondent describe how the process unravelled.
There was mud on the sides of the general's shoes. He wore corduroy trousers, a shirt and tie, a V-neck jumper, and a tweed jacket. Gen John de Chastelain was in the Throne Room at Hillsborough Castle to make the most politically important statement he had ever had to give, but was still dressed for the outdoors, where he had spent much of the previous 24 hours.
He looked tired, strained and shaken. The previous afternoon, he had been collected in Northern Ireland by people acting on behalf of the IRA and brought to one or more secret locations. His escorts ensured that he did not know where he was going, or where he was when he arrived. He was gone, out of mobile phone contact, for close to 24 hours.
He spent hours inspecting rifles, automatic weapons, explosives, timing devices and larger weapons - possibly rocket-propelled grenades - one by one to ensure they were in working order.
He then watched as they were irreversibly disabled - exactly how, we don't know. He knew he had to be at Hillsborough Castle by lunchtime on Tuesday, and that a breakthrough in the political process hinged on his report of what he had seen.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, knew that too, which is why, with mounting anxiety, he arrived in Government Buildings in Dublin at 6.30 a.m. on Tuesday to try to contact him. He had had an arrangement to talk to the general by phone the previous evening at 6.30 p.m., but by that time he was already on his way to the IRA arms dumps.
Government sources insist there was no question that the Taoiseach wanted to advise the scrupulously independent general as to what he should say.
Rather, he wanted to ask him to impress on his IRA travelling companions that they should give him permission to be as specific as possible about the act of decommissioning that was about to take place, and their commitment to future decommissioning. Without a very detailed report, the Taoiseach feared, the deal to enable an election to be held in a positive atmosphere could collapse due to unionist cynicism.
So when he heard at 6.30 p.m. on Monday that the general had already headed off on his mission, he became concerned.
Later that night, Government sources tried to play down the growing euphoria, and warned against the presumption that the deal was done. As commentators began using the word "historic" once more to describe what Tuesday would bring, the sources warned that there was still a possible hitch: that it wasn't yet a done deal.
But at 7 a.m. on Tuesday - half an hour after the Taoiseach arrived at Government Buildings for the second failed attempt to contact the general - Downing Street announced that the Assembly elections would go ahead on November 26th.
This was the trigger for the carefully planned sequence of statements and events designed to reveal the historic deal. In Government Buildings they knew it would be very difficult to stop it now.
Republican leaders past and present, North and South, military and political, gathered in West Belfast's Balmoral Hotel to hear the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams's 10.30 a.m. speech to a press conference. He delivered, word for word, the 201-word passage he had agreed with the Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble over the previous four weeks of intense face-to-face negotiations.
He said the implementation of the Belfast Agreement "provides the context in which Irish republicans and unionists will, as equals, pursue their objectives peacefully, thus providing full and final closure of the conflict". He added: "We are opposed to any use or threat of force for any political purpose."
Exactly as he began to speak, the weekly Cabinet meeting was starting in Dublin. Bertie Ahern was called out of it for a phonecall from Tony Blair.
The British Prime Minister confirmed that he was about to leave for Hillsborough. Ahern expressed concern that neither leader had heard from the general, and that they didn't know what he would say. However, he said he would leave too. He left Government Buildings at 11.40 a.m.
About the same time, the IRA released its statement saying that Adams's speech "accurately reflects our position". Those seeking ambiguity still questioned whether in this statement, the IRA was endorsing the entire speech, or only the sections in which Adams had purported to represent the IRA's view.
But most observers interpreted it as a truly historic move, meaning that the IRA too was "opposed to any use or threat of force for any political purpose" and that it saw the implementation of the Belfast Agreement, and not the achievement of a united Ireland, as the trigger for the "full and final closure of the conflict" - the end of the war.
The sequence appeared to be working, but already the set-piece events were missing their deadlines.
The original plan had Adams speaking at 10 a.m., the IRA statement at 10.30 a.m., Gen de Chastelain's report at 11 a.m., Trimble speaking at around 11.30 a.m. and finally, Blair and Ahern appearing at Hillsborough at 1 p.m.
But with the general still missing in action, everything else was deferred.
With his work finished some time that morning, Gen de Chastelain is believed to have travelled some distance by road, possibly from somewhere in the Republic, before arriving at a point in Northern Ireland. There he was collected by a British army helicopter and brought to Hillsborough.
When the Taoiseach's officials turned their mobile phones back on after landing at Aldergrove airport at 1.15 p.m., one had a message saying the general was on his way to Hillsborough and would be there at 2 p.m.
The British and Irish parties had sat down to lunch at Hillsborough when the general arrived. He looked like he had been through an ordeal. He was about to be put through another one.
Blair and Ahern abandoned their lunch and took the general to a room upstairs. There they told him all the things Ahern had wanted to tell him the night before. They told him how important his report was, and that what he said could make an enormous difference to the political process.
He told them of his strict understanding with the IRA concerning what he could or could not say, and that he was going to adhere to this understanding. He then told them some of what he had seen. He did not give them an inventory of the weapons that had been put beyond use. Whether he gave them any extra details at all was the subject of hot political dispute last night.
He then went off to write his report. The two governments were now very apprehensive, and became alarmed while listening to the general's delivery of his written report to waiting journalists.
Speaking softly from notes, he said he had been present as the IRA "put beyond use" a substantial and significant quantity of weapons.
He said there had been more than last time, but would not state how much. The weapons had included explosives, heavy artillery, automatic weapons, fuses, detonators, timing units and power supplies.
Asked how long it would take to put the entire IRA arsenal beyond use - a question dear to the hearts of unionists, he said it would "take as long as it takes".
His tone was clinical and dispassionate. It gave no sense of the drama and history that the two governments had hoped for.
The general's colleague, Andrew Sens, was standing alongside him with one foot on the platform as if pushing to say his piece. He appeared increasingly agitated.
At one stage he interrupted the question-and-answer session to deliver the best soundbite of the presentation: "The material put beyond use this morning could have caused death or destruction on a huge scale had it been put to use." The governments would have preferred such graphic descriptions to have peppered the general's presentation. Unionists would have loved him to have begun on such a note.
No sooner had the general left the room than the British Prime Minister's official spokesman was in to talk it up to a huddle of journalists who had begun asking each other: "Is that it?" This was of major significance, Blair's spokesman insisted. The explosives disposed of had included Semtex, a fact not referred to by the general. When he had said the amount of weapons destroyed had been greater than last time, he meant it had been greater than the amount destroyed in the two previous acts of decommissioning combined.
Some 15 miles away, in Ulster Unionist Party headquarters in east Belfast, the mood had shifted dramatically from one of high expectation that morning, to caution, to an anxious sense of something gone badly wrong.
Senior unionists, including the key negotiators who had accompanied Trimble for some 12 intense talks sessions with Sinn Féin over previous month, had gathered in the boardroom of Cunningham House, the UUP's new premises. They sat around an impressive table with a candelabra in the middle and a portrait of Edward Carson looking down on them from the wall. Even before the general appeared live on the widescreen television in the room, they were uneasy. The significant time slippage during the day had made them nervous.
Now, as the general began talking, his left, muddied shoe tapping audibly and nervously on the podium, unionist fears transformed into outright anxiety. This was the one set-piece event script which had not been prepared and approved in advance.
Trimble needed a long, detailed account of a major act of decommissioning, so he could tell voters next month that his strategy had delivered. Instead, the general opened up by assuring journalists that this would not take long.
His short and understated performance left the unionist boardroom in a state of anxiety. Some denounced the decommissioning performance in similar terms to the previous act more than a year earlier and pressed the party leader for strident action. Some claimed the IRA's secrecy was designed to make life difficult for Trimble and expose his leadership to yet further internal criticism, further weakening unionism.
Trimble took his mobile phone and called the very people in Sinn Féin he had engaged for so long over the previous four weeks and spent most of Sunday with. He also spoke to others, including Blair's key negotiator, Jonathan Powell, who had accompanied the British Prime Minister to Hillsborough. News spread around Hillsborough Castle: Trimble wasn't buying it.
Back at Cunningham House, Trimble stood before the cameras with senior party members united behind him. He was handed a small microphone to clip on to his tie, but it fell apart as he tried to attach it.
He dumped the prepared script. The process was on hold, he said, as the necessary transparency had not been forthcoming. Hail showered on Hillsborough Castle as the British and Irish government parties watched Trimble say what they knew by then was inevitable.
Reporters and camera crews, summoned back to the castle once again, saw Blair employ his flashing smile and put a brave face on things. This was never an easy peace process he said and, guess what, there was another problem. But he and Ahern would stay and sort things out.
A glum-looking Taoiseach and a forcibly cheery Blair left the Throne Room to re-invent the wheel. Nobody was spinning lines about a "historic" day now.
Officials of both governments made no bones about the gravity of the situation. Irish Government officials reminded reporters quietly that they had said the night before there was a possible stumbling block, and they had all just fallen over it.
Hours passed. Gerry Adams led a Sinn Féin group into the castle to talk to the two government leaders. There was a rumour that Trimble was on his way, but he never came.
Blair and Ahern emerged for their final press conference. Blair tried to turn failure into a temporary setback. Ahern looked thunderous.
Blair cheerily took almost every question, even some of those directed towards the Taoiseach. Efforts would continue in the morning.
Journalists and camera crews were beginning to dismantle equipment and decamp to the temporary press centre in the nearby pub to send pictures and stories, when Adams reappeared with his party leadership in tow.
He turned in a passionate performance. Everything asked of republicans had been done, he maintained. Who would have most reason to be happy that night, he asked, his eyebrows raised in questioning mode.
He paused before answering his own question: "Ian Paisley and Jeffrey Donaldson."