Sinn Fein seemed genuinely taken aback by Mandelson's announcement. They angrily said that it was "not up to the Northern Ireland Secretary to do P.R. for Glengall Street" [Glengall Street being the location of the Ulster Unionist head office]. The IRA released a statement using conciliatory language, but still not making any committments to decommissioning. For eight days, the British government let the prospect of suspension hang and this did, indeed, encourage negotiations between Sinn Fein and the IRA. Dissident Republicans, a disparate but growing body of people opposed to Sinn Fein's strategy in the peace process, chose this period to detonate a small bomb at Mahon's Hotel in Irvinestown, county Fermanagh. It was almost certainly an attempt to destabilise the peace process. The SDLP and Irish governments added their voices to calls not to proceed with suspension.

The chronology of events of 11 February 2000 is somewhat confusing. Firstly, General John de Chastelain released his second report (as well as the much-leaked first) which also said that the IRA had not begun decommissioning, but added that there was a possiblity that it would happen before May 2000. At 5pm, Peter Mandelson announced that the Assembly would be suspended as of midnight. Sinn Fein were furious and said that the IRA had made an 11th-hour offer which the British had ignored. The British replied that it had come too late, and in any case contained too little. However, the Irish government said that the British had been given the offer several hours before the 5pm decision. The British retorted that it didn't make any difference when they got it, because it was still too little: the IRA had offered to "consider putting arms beyond use", and this was to be linked to British army troop-withdrawals, rather than making any committments to decommissioning. Thus a rift was torn open between the two governments and between the Nationalist parties and the government: relations were strained for several weeks. Suspension had also rescued the UUP, who then did not have to withdraw formally from the Assembly at all.

Over the next week, the political fall-out rained down: the British government was accused of breaching the Agreement, hardline Unionists demanded a renegotiation of the Agreement and dissident Republican bomb hoaxes plagued the public. On 16 February 2000, the IRA announced that it was withdrawing its support from de Chastelain's decommissioning body and also rescinded all previous offers to the body. In all this, the opinion of the Irish opposition, the goverment of the USA and the Irish media seemed to come down on the side of the UUP, and the Unionists were able to bask in a rare state of widespread sympathy. This they used to demand that the government's 'placation' of the IRA must end with suspension.

For the rest of February, the process festered with inaction, with all sides engaging in a feeding-frenzy of finger pointing. The two governments attempted to put a stop to it on 18 Februry, when the British and Irish governments closed their rift and began demanding a stop to what Mandelson called "the blame game".

The second half of February also saw the intensification of an ongoing feud between the (pro-Agreement) loyalist terror group, the UVF, and the (anti-Agreement) loyalist terror group, the LVF. The LVF is based in the Portadown area and was originally a splinter from the UVF. The feud had taken a turn for the worse on 10 January when a prominent UVF leader, Robert Jameson, was shot dead in Portadown. On 19 February two young men were found murdered and mutilated near Tandragee, county Armagh. Although it is unclear, it is suspected that this was retalliation by the UVF. The families of the two young men denied that their sons had any involvement in the LVF, and "UVF child killer" slogans appeared overnight in the mid-Ulster area. Another man was shot and wounded in Portadown on 25 February. The third loyalist terror group, the UDA, urged the UVF and LVF to stop their feud.

Dissident Republican terrorist activity also continued. They detonated a small bomb at Ballykelly army base on 25 February, and the RUC found a primed east-European rocket launcher near Dungannon on the 29th, which could well be a recent import.

Sinn Fein organised 'reinstate the Executive' rallies and encouraged Nationalists to take to the streets (the latter drawing criticism from the SDLP as unnecessary incitement). Sinn Fein said that the Agreement was 'in tatters' and that the British had used a veto on the process. Despite all this, the rest of the month saw very few attempts to resolve the problem (the Alliance being one of the few parties who did) and the process continued to fester.

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