Members of the British military establishment are still engaged in a war against republicans, Sinn Féin President Mr Adams said tonight.
Mr Adams, who is being pressed by unionists and the British and Irish governments to confirm that the IRA activity is over for good, said: "For the spooks and the spies at MI5 and all the rest of them, their war is not over.
"What their war is about is defeating people like you," the Sinn Féin President told an election rally at a Republican ex-prisoners club in West Belfast.
The focus of those calling for more movement from the IRA was about preventing change, he said.
"It is obvious that change has been delayed, that change is being held back," he went on.
"But for as long as people in this room and people throughout the island and our friends internationally are committed to being agents of change, then that's all they can do."
Earlier today Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Mr Adams still had questions to answer on whether the IRA had finally put an end to conflict.
But Mr Adams tonight insisted that a deal was still achievable, based on the IRA statement which was delivered to the two governments.
"The British government has an IRA statement which the vast majority of IRA volunteers haven't seen. So they (IRA members) have a justifiable right to be indignant. For the rest of us that is a luxury," he said.
The British government's inability to move forward was not based on its need to be sure of the IRA.
"Tony Blair knows what Republicans have contributed to this process," he said.
"The problem lies with the inability of the British government to bring about change. He (Mr Blair) cannot forever be in hock to unionism."
With Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble vying to block a return of the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland until the IRA declared that its terrorist campaign was over, the Sinn Féin President accused unionist leaders of being scared.
"The leaders of political unionism were contented for a week or two. They didn't have to do anything. The whole process of change was delayed," he said.
"Then yesterday I gave an explanation of an army (IRA) statement, then unionism became agitated because we, the people who wanted change, moved to accommodate the possibility of it happening sooner rather than later."
PA