Analysis: It may be difficult for the DUP to retain negative politics, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
The word "trust" ricocheted around the press conference centres in Belfast yesterday.
At the Culloden Hotel on the Belfast outskirts the general, his colleagues and the clerics told us they had personally witnessed IRA decommissioning and it was "massive".
They believed that was the end of the IRA's killing machine. At DUP headquarters in east Belfast Ian Paisley didn't.
At the Waterfront in Belfast city centre, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams was in a rather pensive mode. He gave the impression of a man who expected no less from the DUP. Dr Paisley would need some time and space to come to terms with the enormity of what the IRA had done and he could have that time, was Mr Adams's line.
So, convincing the Doc that not only is the IRA ending activity, as it pledged in its July 28th statement, but that it has got rid of all its guns and explosives is what the next several months will be about. Dr Paisley did not offer any indications that he is a leader who will be easily convinced. As far as the DUP leader was concerned yesterday was merely an exercise in "duplicity and dishonesty".
There are plenty of good reasons for the DUP not accepting the word of the IRA. Yet, when you examine the party's position you find an inconsistency which keeps bringing us back to the "trust" word. But we'll come to that.
If Dr Paisley is correct then Gen John de Chastelain, Brig Gen Tauno Nieminen, Andrew Sens, Rev Harold Good and Fr Alec Reid are gullible dupes of the IRA.
Dr Paisley accepted they had witnessed decommissioning but was it all the guns? How could he tell when he didn't have pictures, when he wasn't allowed by the IRA to nominate his own cleric to verify the disarmament? At the DUP press conference, Dr Paisley was accompanied by Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds. For one minute it appeared he might fire off a few dangerous broadsides against the Protestant and Catholic testifiers. He had "biographies" of the two men in his pocket, he told reporters rather ominously. That seemed a loaded comment but he did not elaborate despite some pressing from journalists. Later Mr Robinson was on hand to insist that nothing was being said by DUP representatives to impugn the reputation of the clerics.
The three members of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning also have their reputations to protect and yesterday they stated in the most emphatic terms that they believed the IRA had rendered its entire arsenal beyond use.
Rev Good said he and Fr Reid were "utterly certain" the IRA had fully decommissioned.
The commissioners said what was rendered beyond use was "consistent" with what the security services in the Republic and Northern Ireland had told them was in the IRA stockpiles. That's something like 650 Kalashnikovs and Armalites, 500 handguns, a couple of tonnes of Semtex, 40 or so machine guns, mortars, rockets, flame-throwers, surface-to-air-missiles, and other weaponry.
The curious, seemingly contradictory, point about the DUP's position is that even if Dr Paisley had his own nominee to the disarmament and even if he had photographs - in fact, even if he had a home movie of the event - the DUP leader would still be in the same position as he was in yesterday. By the arguments the DUP was applying about lack of certainty it was equally clear that neither pictures nor a Free Presbyterian verifier could assure Dr Paisley that the IRA hadn't left a number of pikes in the thatch.
Death and taxes may be sure things but on the DUP terms it seems impossible to achieve absolute certainty on IRA decommissioning. It's back down to trust - not a plentiful commodity in Northern Ireland, and, of course, the expertise of the commissioners. Why should anybody believe the IICD, the commissioners were asked at yesterday's press conference. "Because we are telling the truth," said Gen de Chastelain. "Why would we lie?" said Mr Sens, who developed this theme in an interesting fashion.
People had options, he added. They could take the word of the IRA that it had fully disarmed. "Or you can demand greater verification than that and take their word for it and our word for it. Or if you want more verification than that you can take their word for it, our word for it, and the two witnesses' word for it. But at some point you get back to the original point [ of the question], there is an element of trust in this."
Mr Sens could have continued that in October and in January doubters could also take the word of the members of the Independent Monitoring Commission, presuming that they can say that IRA activity has stopped, as seems to be the case on the ground and as the governments believe.
As mentioned before, you can never be sure with Dr Paisley. If he is genuinely up for some sort of accommodation with republicans - and he has indicated that he is if the IRA is gone away - then there is still a chance that in 12 months' time Northern Ireland could be witness to serious negotiations aimed at restoring devolution.
It might take more than two positive IMC reports to finally convince Dr Paisley that this is a monumental shift by the IRA. But if republicans live up to their word by springtime the British and Irish governments will start to exert pressure on the DUP to do business with Sinn Féin.
The IRA could only do final decommissioning once and yesterday within their rather convoluted rules of operating with the real world they did it well.
Dr Paisley can keep saying no for a long time but if the IRA has genuinely ceased to function as a paramilitary force then it will be politically difficult for him not to finally shift away from negative politics. He will have run out of genuine excuses.