Related Articles

Iraq All Over Again? And Where Is Katharine Gun

“A rush to war based on faulty intelligence and a manufactured crisis sounds very familiar.  

Some called her a traitor; others insisted she was a hero. Whatever, she blew the whistle ultimately revealing the truth behind the build-up to the Iraq War—regime change, disguised as terrifying threats of weapons of mass destruction...

Enter Katharine Gun. Her story, which reveals what a country will do when it wants war and claims it does not, is told in an updated book and a major motion picture soon to be released—Official Secrets (Keira Knightly is Katharine). British Secret Service Officer Katharine, then a young bride, risked everything to leak details of the Bush-Blair plan to coerce (possibly blackmail) members of the UN Security Council in order to win their votes to legalize invading Iraq. The spin in this country and in the UK was the threat of deadly weapons ready to be deployed by Saddam. The truth was that in April of 2002, the two world leaders secretly had agreed on a plan to take out Saddam, all the while giving speeches insisting that the only motivation for even considering war was that horrific stockpile of deadly weapons.”
More at:  https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/20/iraq-all-over-again-and-where-katharine-gun

Part of SFFILM Festival Closing Night Film: “Official Secrets”

Wow! A new film is débuting in San Francisco this month about Katherine Gun’s act of conscience to try and stop the morally depraved Iraq War.
More details here: https://sffilm.org/event/closing-night-film-official-secrets/?fbclid=IwAR1kpOHuwm48oNXD5_15LPGwZWXl9x_MmI255_TWlFRUouotpPR5yAk5_cY

“The story of Katharine Gun is one that’s often been overlooked and undervalued since the Iraq war and there’s immense satisfaction in seeing her bravery and selflessness heralded on the big screen … [Knightley is] fantastic here, vulnerable and strong-willed, her face conveying the inner anguish of someone losing faith in her government while fearful for what might come next.” – Benjamin Lee, The Guardian
“Knightley shows real steel as Gun, giving the character a righteous fury as she refuses to sit by while her government conspires to blackmail other countries in order to justify this encroaching war. The Oscar-nominated actress lets us observe Gun’s torn loyalties: On the one hand, she wants to protect her vulnerable husband, but she also must listen to her conscience, which tells her that this invasion was morally wrong…. –Tim Grierson, Screen Daily”

Ex-GCHQ whistleblower attacks plans to extend dragnet of secrecy law

Katharine Gun says expanded jail terms for leaking state secrets will deter people from revealing abuses of power

Published in The Guardian 2/13/2017

By Owen Bowcott, Legal Affairs Correspondent, published in The Guardian, 2/13/2017

A former GCHQ whistleblower has condemned plans by government lawyers to increase prison sentences and expand the definition of espionage for the digital age.

Katharine Gun, a former translator for the monitoring agency who leaked details of an operation to bug United Nations offices before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has spoken out following the publication of Law Commission plans suggesting that maximum jail terms for those leaking information should rise from two years to 14 years.

In the past, Gun has called for a public interest defence to be introduced into the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to protect whistleblowers and prevent governments from hiding politically embarrassing information.

(more…)

Take it from a whistleblower: Chilcot’s jigsaw puzzle is missing a few pieces (by Katherine Gun)

We now know more about the shameful behaviour that led to the Iraq war. But with my experience at GCHQ, I could have helped the inquiry

Following the damning Chilcot report, much will be said about the decision to go to war in Iraq. But one thing will be missing: the information I leaked in the runup to the war. It won’t get an airing because I was never questioned or asked to participate in the Chilcot inquiry.

The Iraq inquiry delivered a comprehensively damning verdict on Tony Blair and the decision to join the US-led invasion, but some questions remain

Back in early 2003, Tony Blair was keen to secure UN backing for a resolution that would authorise the use of force against Iraq. I was a linguist and analyst at GCHQ when, on 31 Jan 2003, I, along with dozens of others in GCHQ, received an email from a senior official at the National Security Agency. It said the agency was “mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN security council (UNSC) members”, and that it wanted “the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises”.

In other words, the US planned to use intercepted communications of the security council delegates. The focus of the “surge” was principally directed at the six swing nations then on the UNSC: Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan. The Chilcot report has eliminated any doubt that the goal of the war was regime change by military means. But that is what many people already suspected in 2003.

I was furious when I read that email and leaked it. Soon afterwards, when the Observer ran a front-page story: “US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war”, I confessed to the leak and was arrested on suspicion of the breach of section 1 of the Official Secrets Act. I pleaded not guilty and, assisted by Liberty and Ben Emmerson QC, offered a defence of necessity – in other words, a breach of the law in order to prevent imminent loss of human life. This defence had not and, to my knowledge, has still not, been tested in a court of law.

I believed that on receiving the email, UK parliamentary members might question the urgency and motives of the war hawks, and demand further deliberations and scrutiny. I thought it might delay or perhaps even halt the march towards a war that would devastate Iraqi lives and infrastructure already crushed by a decade of unrelenting sanctions. A war that would send UK and US service men and women into harm’s way, leaving hundreds of them dead, disfigured and traumatised. Unfortunately, that did not happen. It couldn’t, for now we know via Chilcot that Blair promised George W Bush he would be “with him, whatever”.

It took eight months before the Crown Prosecution Service announced I would be charged. It had a change of heart two and a half months later, after my legal team demanded to see all the legal advice to Blair in the runup to the war. I left the Old Bailey with a huge weight gone from my shoulders. It was a day I will never forget.

Chilcot’s report does not apportion blame. But it does provide ample evidence of what many of us knew all along: that this was an illegal war, that military intervention was by no means a last resort, that all avenues were not exhausted and that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the UK. Furthermore, the post-invasion plan for Iraq looked like it had been scribbled on the back of a beer mat. Blair was warned by the intelligence services that the threat levels to the UK would increase, that Iraqi weapons would fall into the hands of al-Qaida. The consequences of his lack of concern about these things can be felt to this day.

We know a lot more now than we knew before, but what about the email I leaked? Who did the NSA talk to in the UK to OK it? Did it talk to anyone? How did an NSA official feel bold enough to write to UK civil servants anticipating their cooperation in an attempt to undermine the UN’s diplomatic processes, in a secret effort to garner information to secure “results favourable to US goals”? How far did the surveillance operation proceed? Whose communications did they intercept and record? What, if anything did they discover and did they use any information they may have gathered? Was this email sent to other organisation or agencies besides GCHQ? It seems reasonable to ask why this crucial information was not included in the Chilcot inquiry?

It was a huge relief when the CPS dropped its charges. But I had admitted the leak. Why did it decline to offer evidence? The catastrophe of the Iraq invasion and occupation is painfully evident today. Terrorism and risk has spread across the globe as many said it would. So much for “keeping us safe” and protecting our freedoms.

Chilcot has shone a light on what happened, but it is clear there are still bits of the puzzle that are missing. Now that we know better, will we do better?

(Katharine Gun is a former mandarin specialist at GCHQ and whistleblower. She leaked an email about US plans to spy on the UN, and was charged under the Official Secrets Act. She is the recipient of the 2003 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. Original op-ed at The Guardian.)

Chilcot Report Avoids Smoking Gun

While many are calling the just-released British Iraq Inquiry — the so-called Chilcot Report — a “damning indictment” of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and others who led the way to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the report contains stark gaps.

Particularly glaring is that there is no mention of Katharine Gun in the 2.6 million-word report. She exposed U.S. and British spying against United Nations Security Council members prior to the invasion.

While President George W. Bush was claiming during the buildup to the invasion that “we are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq” — in fact, the U.S. government was going to great lengths to ensure war.

Shortly before the invasion, as the UN was considering a second resolution authorizing war, Katharine Gun, who worked at the Government Communications Headquarters — the British equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency — exposed a damning NSA memo.

The memo talked of “mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council” to get an “edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals.”

Her exposure of the effort helped scuttle efforts for a UN resolution authorizing war. The U.S. and Britain proceeded with the “shock and awe” bombing campaign and invasion without such approval.

Katharine Gun faced years in prison for exposing the document, but after she mounted a legal defense that demanded to see legal advice Blair had received regarding the invasion of Iraq, the charges against her were dropped.

A piece by Katharine Gun is set to appear tomorrow in the British Guardian.

KATHARINE GUN, kthgun[at]yahoo.co.uk

For background see: “Katharine Gun’s Risky Truth-telling,” by Sam Husseini (from 2014) and “For Telling the Truth,” by Norman Solomon (from 2003). Also see: accuracy.org/gun.

The Institute for Public Accuracy issued several news releases prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq exposing false U.S. government claims, including: “U.S. Credibility Problems,” and “White House Claims: A Pattern of Deceit.”

WikiLeaks notes: “Cable reveals #Chilcot report fixed to ‘protect U.S. interests.’”

(Institute for Public Accuracy at: http://www.accuracy.org/release/chilcot-report-avoids-smoking-gun/)