A translator for UK intelligence agency GCHQ, Gun read a brief from the US National Security Agency urging its British sister organisation to spy on members of the UN Security Council, to gain influence i n a vote The work shed signed up to do was covered by British law, and would be something to do with whatever that was necessary to keep British lives safe. The memo, however represented the actual twisting of diplomatic arms in order to secure a war which [was] based on lies., But it also represented an opportunity to show the world the tactics American and British officials were willing to employ in their push for an invasion. Today, I believe the Act serves as an illiberal, draconian piece of law, little more than a weapon of the state to deter any disclosure, no matter how much in the public interest it might be. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. But she still was not uncomfortable with the other things we've talked about. I answered an advert in The Guardian newspaper for a translator. Gun, her husband, and their four-year-old daughter shed their coveted privacy long enough to allow Katharine to be one of two former Sam Adams Award winners to present this year's award. I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. If if wasnt, what does that mean for the rule of law? Six months later they released Nelson Mandela. So we just worked on the performance from the very what if it's you? Im gratified, too, that the film shows the love and support my husband gave me throughout this ordeal. But any such illusions were shattered on the freezing cold morning of Friday, January 31, 2003, as I read and re-read the most extraordinary email from Americas intelligence service, the National Security Agency. David Dayen: The first thing I thought about when looking at this movie is that in most recent historical epics, the audience knows what's happening next. Throughout her own court case, whatonly a few knew wasthat she was also fighting for the right of her husband, who is from Turkey, to remain in the UK. The movie tells the story of Katharine Gun (played by Keira Knightley), a translator with the U.K.'s GCHQ who, in 2003, leaked top secret documents to journalist Martin Bright (Matt Smith) that revealed that the American government's plans to apply pressure on members of the U.N. Security Counsel to pass its war resolution. As it was, a second UN resolution directly to authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on 19 March 2003. [Gun's husband Yasar, a Kurd, was nearly deported back to the Middle East at one point, even though he had nothing to do with the leak.]. When Katharine Gun came across a memo while working for the British government in 2003, her whole world changed. As one of the journalists who broke the story, I feel a certain responsibility for how things have turned out. In technical speak, the Americans wanted the whole gamut of information which would give US policy makers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals in relation to Iraq. In one pivotal scene in the film, all of Gun and Bright's work is nearly undone by one mistake, as a member of The Observer team accidentally changed the American spelling of the memo into British spelling, something The Drudge Report then used to discredit the memo. Some of those same birds are still flapping wings in the skies above Washington. Who spoke to the homeland secretary? We all, in some ways, make these decisions. And it was this book which eventually became the script for Official Secrets. President Bush visits the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, January 25, 2006. Katharine Gun, a shy and studious 28-year-old who spent her days listening in to obscure Chinese intercepts, decided to tell the world about a secret plan by the US government to spy on the, Don't mention the Iraq war, William Hague tells cabinet, Tenyears on, the case for invading Iraq is still valid, Occupying Iraq: a US army veteran's ambivalence, Howthe Bush administration sold the war and we bought it, the story the paper published 10 years ago this weekend, was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act, collapsed after the prosecution withdrew its evidence. Her late husband, Tom, a former special agent of the FBI and one-time head of counter-intelligence in New York, co-authored the Gun story. If it was, who cleared it to be passed to GCHQ? It was the first time I had worked with characters who were still alive, and they very much wanted it to be accurate or they wouldn't sign over their life rights. ", "I think Gavin had a really difficult time telling this story because it doesn't fit into a normal sort of storytelling mode," said Gun. [Ahmed is depicted in the film as strongly pro-war, resistant to running stories that conflict with his opinion.]. Questioner: The only thing that I've wondered while watching the film, since it's a true story, is how could Ms. Gunn, who was a spy, who was a member of an intelligence agency, be surprised when her husband got deportedor when the government came after her husband, how could she be surprised when all of the different reactions she got came forward? First, I contacted someone to this day Ive never named them who had the details of a journalist and anti-war activist. I believe that all of this should have been formally acknowledged as part of the history of the second Gulf War. However, the Pentagon says the US deployment is "in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests.". And it's not an easy question, it sounds easy, but I don't think it is. Sound familiar? What appealed to me in the end is that Katharine is in fact, far more like us. "You get to the end, and there's this court case. We may earn a commission from these links. Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Ive been impressed by the film-makers determination to stick to the facts Gavin Hood, the director, interviewed me at length over five days and I was consulted throughout the process. Not good enough, the trio decided. Before 1989, there had been a Public Interest Defence to protect whistleblowers, but that was altered amid the furore surrounding the sinking of the Argentinian Navy cruiser, the General Belgrano, in the course of the Falklands War. This and her other writings about intelligence issues have been critically acclaimed. You might say I am biased. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images). Director Gavin Hood Writers Sara Bernstein Gregory Bernstein Gavin Hood Stars Keira Knightley Matt Smith Matthew Goode 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). Id immediately be transported back to GCHQ and that email the anger I felt and the decisions I made. Which is to say that GCHQ was being asked to dig dirt on foreign officials so that they could be blackmailed, bribed or both in order to secure a UN resolution authorising an invasion. Ive already lost a dear friend, and I cant do thisget called up two months of the year, every year, for the next 12 years. Whistleblower Katherine Gun, right, is played by Keira Knightly in the movie Official Secrets, Gun was outraged after she learned - as part of her job with GCHQ - that the United States wanted Britain to assist in spying on fellow United Nations Security Council members to win a vote in favour of a planned war in Iraq. Gavin Hood: Its a great question. She had been following that war, as many of us had, for a year. Later, she gave the document to a friend, who passed it onto a contact in the anti-war movement, until it finally landed with journalists Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy The Observer. Actually, there were two incidents at sea, blamed originally on the North Vietnamese. Surely, after 16 years, we are entitled to have answers. Even though she didn't stop the war and some people are like what's the point if she didn't stop the warwell, the point is how do you sleep at night? She wasnt planning to get caught and then the dilemma was, My friends are all going to have their lives ruined.. Sixteen years ago, I became headline news after I leaked an internal email from GCHQ, the communications intelligence gathering centre near Cheltenham. WebWhistleblower Katherine Gun, right, is played by Keira Knightly in the movie Official Secrets View gallery Gun was outraged after she learned - as part of her job with GCHQ - that Where do you draw the line? "On the one hand, she's free. [U.S. media dropped the story because the Drudge Report noted that the NSA memo in The Observer had British spellings for words like favourable, which nobody in the U.S. would write. Then, we all started watching the invasion and we werent how we got into the war. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. And that's quite a depressing place to find yourself in when you feel so strongly and passionately about something. The days and weeks dragged agonisingly by. Jack Straw, then the foreign secretary, has not been challenged on whether he authorised the operation to go ahead, although it is almost certain that he did. A transcript, lightly edited with explainers where necessary, follows. I didnt know the story and I googled her. His philosophy comes from a military intelligence model, which actually, by the time you go to war, now it's about winning. So, that's where we had to go for WMD. WebKatharine Gun, as passionately embodied here by Knightley, skews too noble to be particularly interesting, and the film is weakest when its focused on her and her husband Gavin Hood: Hes not in journalism. This included a particular focus on the "swing nations" on the security council, Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, "as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters". In the matter of a few years. So, she began to feel uncomfortable in the work she was doing at that point. But I do want to give her credit that I think I didn't do her justice enough in the moment that she leaked that memo; it changed so quickly to war that we don't really get a moment to absorb the fact that as a result of her leaking that memo, there was no vote at the UN Security Council. So somehow in my rolodex, sometimes they sought me out. Truth and accountability were drilled into me as a child. Or, in this case, when the Office of Special Plans was set up, youve got Feith and someone like Abram Shulsky, whose philosophy of intelligence is very different. As a result, there never was any second UN resolution. Although the story made headlines around the world at the time of the leak and later at the time of her trial, which collapsed after the prosecution withdrew its evidence, it remains largely missing from the official narratives of the build-up to the Iraq war. 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