There will be a firestorm of coverage of the conclusions of the Bloody Sunday inquiry set to be released on Tuesday.

Along with the coverage expect a full effort by apologists for the soldiers to excuse their horrific actions

Already we are seeing the knee-jerk reaction to the report from the powers-that-be in England.

Not since the Peterloo massacre of 150 years earlier had as many civilians been killed on a British street by authorities as were killed on Bloody Sunday in January 1972.

The urge to cover up the slaying of the 14 killed (13 killed, one died later) was quickly acted upon. Now all these years later it appears the truth is coming out.

That truth is not pretty. Paratroopers shot dead the 14 in cold blood.

Some may now be prosecuted for their crimes, according to one leak of the Saville Report which took 12 years and cost $300 million.

Already British government and army figures are desperately trying to downplay the report and cast aspersions on its findings.

The line will be that the soldiers were under enormous pressure and besides the IRA committed many atrocities too.

But the victims of the IRA were never blackened like those killed on Bloody Sunday were.

For decades the effort was made to somehow insist they were armed and dangerous. They were not, they were victims of a well set up paratroop operation aimed at intimidating the nationalist community by killing some of them

The new evidence clearly shows that.

The man, known as Soldier 027, told the inquiry that soldiers in his company had been encouraged to "get some kills" the night before Bloody Sunday, and that was seen as "tantamount to an order."

Soldier 027 spoke at the Saville inquiry of a total brutality among members of 1st Para, which he described as the army's "rottweiler".

He said: "I had the distinct impression that this was a case of some soldiers realizing this was an opportunity to fire their weapon and they did not want to miss the chance.

"There was no justification for a single shot I saw fired … the only threat was a large assembly of people and we were all experienced soldiers who had been through riot situations before."

O27 lives in witness protection now, forced to live a new life because some of his old comrades want to kill him

Then there was General Sir Robert Ford, commander of land forces in Northern Ireland.

Ford wrote a paper on the subject of "rioting". He said that it may be necessary to "shoot the ringleaders" after giving warnings.

That is the harsh reality of the Bloody Sunday killings.

It was open season on nationalists and they were gunned down like dogs.

No efforts to ever whitewash that truth will succeed.