The president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams, has given the White House a report on the reform of the RUC which accuses the Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson of "emasculating" the Patten Commission recommendations.
Mr Adams was speaking following a 40-minute meeting at the White House with officials from the National Security Council - contrary to advance reports that he would meet President Clinton. Mr Adams reviewed the situation in Northern Ireland during the meeting.
He also expressed concern about the demonstrations called by the Orange Order yesterday across Northern Ireland. He said that it was an "intolerable situation that people in beleaguered nationalist areas such as Garvaghy Road should be subjected to sectarian harassment which is outlawed under the Good Friday agreement".
Mr Adams handed over a report commissioned by Sinn Fein comparing the Patten recommendations with the policing Bill. He said that the way the British government had dealt with policing appeared "to be about actually defeating the objectives set by that same government".
If the Bill, in its present form, continued into codes and regulations "then there will not be any support from any of the main parties, or indeed the Irish Government, or from the broad republican/nationalist position, for the type of policing being put forward by Peter Mandelson and others in Downing Street", he warned.
Mr Adams said that the focus of the White House was to try to consolidate and help both governments, and the parties, in making progress. "I am pleased there was a common view from both the White House and ourselves in the meeting."
While accusing the British government of having "dishonoured" its commitment to implementing Patten, Mr Adams said: "There is still space for this issue to be sorted out and for the British policing Bill to reflect the recommendations of the Patten Commission."
However, he was sceptical about the British government's willingness to do this, given that it was not only "kow-towing to unionism, but more importantly and more dangerously, to those within the securocrats who run the place, and who run policing as a secret, unaccountable, quasimilitary, armed wing of the state.
"They are the people who have succeeded in emasculating the Patten Commission and those are the people that Tony Blair will have to stand up to if we are to see republicans and nationalists being able to join a new police service," Mr Adams said.
Of the 175 recommendations in Patten, only 11 had been implemented. Mr Adams claimed that a further 70 had been subverted.
"Peter Mandelson has totally and completely sold out to the securocrats," he said.