What they are saying about the Bloody Sunday report

The Saville Report's exoneration of all those demonstrators who died on Bloody Sunday 1972, and its blaming of the British Army for the unjustified killings, has led to an extraordinary public apology by the Prime Minister and to a welter of commentary in the British media.

Much of the comment welcomes the report, its findings and David Cameron's subsequent apology on behalf of the British Government, in which he told the Commons that the shootings by British paratroopers were "both unjustified and unjustifiable". But there are others who believe the 12-year inquiry headed by Lord Saville was a waste of time and money, and who ask why the atrocities committed by Republicans during the Troubles do not deserve a similar inquiry.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:Editorial in the Times:"What happened on Bloody Sunday, as David Cameron said yesterday, was 'unjustified and unjustifiable'. This can equally be said of many actions committed by the other side. The Saville Inquiry should contribute to truth and reconciliation, not truth and retribution. To prosecute individual soldiers would only compound injustice."

Lord (Norman) Tebbit in the Daily Telegraph: "I hope that Mr Cameron's unwillingness to contemplate any more costly open-ended inquiries will not exclude a public inquiry into the Brighton murders at the Conservative Party Conference in 1984. Just as the families of the victims at Londonderry had a right to know whether people in high places had plotted the killings, so the surviving victims and the families of the dead of Brighton deserve to know if the killer Magee acted on his own, or whether the murders were plotted by people in IRA/Sinn Fein ­ and, if so, who those plotters were."

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in the Guardian: "Bloody Sunday isn't just about the families or how the 13 individuals lost their lives that day; the 14th dying later of his wounds. It is about whether the British government committed a war crime in 1972 and in so doing started a war. It is the British government, not their anonymous and brutalised soldiers of their alphabet army who should be in the dock, at the international court of justice at The Hague."

Max Hastings in the Daily Mail: "Saville has produced more than 5,000 pages of official paper retelling the Bloody Sunday story, reaching almost identical conclusions to those of innumerable newspaper investigations, books and TV documentaries. Meanwhile the long catalogue of Republican atrocities against the British and Irish peoples goes unexplored.'

Editorial in the Independent: "Saville's efforts have been criticised because his proceedings took so long and cost so much. Everyone can think of far, far better uses to which £200m could have been put, especially at this time of severe economic difficulty. But the truly spectacular cost overruns should not obscure the fact that this is an impressive piece of work with a ring of truth to it and with much potential to improve the standing of justice."

An anonymous British soldier involved in Bloody Sunday in the Belfast Telegraph: “What Saville has concluded is one-sided and does not give the whole picture… To say that we went into the Bogside on that day to kill civvies cannot be further from the truth. We were ordered to go there and sort out rioters who were hitting the Army for days with petrol bombs, nail bombs, bricks, all sorts; we were told we would be making arrests. I feel sorry for people who died if they were innocent, I feel sorry for some soldiers who they say might now get charged. And I am sorry we were in Derry on that sodding day.”

Editorial in the New York Post: "Nearly 40 years after British troops opened fire on protestors in Northern Ireland — sparking decades of bitter sectarian violence — a British government inquiry has finally rendered a credible verdict worthy of a democracy. As Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain announced: 'What happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’ was both unjustified and unjustifiable.' The hard truth of this inquiry and Mr. Cameron’s ringing apology should help move that process and the cause of peace forward." ·