So that's who's running this show. When you have the initial GCHQ induction course for new arrivals, she said, they tell you not to trust journalists, to be careful to keep everything confidential. Still, she printed off the memo, tucked it into her purse, and took it home. And that's quite a depressing place to find yourself in when you feel so strongly and passionately about something. Such a law is not compatible with openness, transparency, accountability and justice. 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). 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. You are sitting in the intelligence services, and Ive spoken to many now because Ive made other films in that world and I have some interesting folks that Ive been able to talk to, and the struggle was were being disloyal if you dont toe a party line, as it were, but we know this isnt right. Iran has been filmed loading missiles aboard some of its vessels. Surely, after 16 years, we are entitled to have answers. Instead, the American coalition was forced to stake its claim to a legal invasion on grounds of self defense, including now-infamously untrue claims about weapons of mass destruction. So when, on the first Sunday of March, 2003, my leak appeared on the front page of The Observer newspaper, I was overcome with shock. With the operation blown, the chances of George W Bush and Tony Blair getting the consensus for a direct UN mandate for war were now near zero. This meant that a lot of the things that we see Gun go through in the film actually took far longer in real life. "There seems to be this blas attitude the spying goes on, everyone does it and so it's nothing to get all hot under the collar about. From nightmares to candy cravings, the seemingly innocuous habits in Man is banned from touching every parking meter in Liverpool for two years after being convicted of theft, Katharine Gun, Gchq Whistleblower For The Mail On Sunday, Do not sell or share my personal information. A decade on, sitting in a cafe in Cheltenham, not far from GCHQ, I asked her if she still stood by what she had done. Yet here was a story that had the capacity to derail the war altogether. And she said, I dont work for the government. That was my first thoughtwhat do you mean you dont work for the government? The case and the resulting anxiety never seemed far away. Now there is the possibility that Gun's singular life will be made into a movie. He said: "Very close. She hoped that if people know about the lengths to which theyve gone to legitimize an invasion of Iraq, then it would blow apart, and people will suddenly think, No, this isnt right, and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.. KatharineGun did not stop the war,but was it all entirely in vain? Does anyone have any questions? One is reminded of the January 31, 2003 Oval Office meeting with George Bush, Tony Blair, and Condoleeza Rice, in which the topic of provoking Iraq to start a war was particularly revealing. WebGun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywoods overtures with a degree of skepticism. As a result of the story the paper published 10 years ago this weekend, she was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act. We go to the canteen and we talk.. Last week in Los Angeles, I got to interview the director, South African-born Gavin Hood, after a screening. Jeb Bush Just Botched the Iraq Question. I was 27 when it all began. WebKatharine Gun wasn't looking for attention or any type of notoriety when in 2003, while working as a British intelligence specialist, she leaked a top secret memo. I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. Despite the millions affected by the Iraq War, its now far removed from British and American news cycles, displaced from the headlines by todays political turmoil. 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. He is just way out there in a whole other realm. Right now my priorities are to ensure I am there for my daughter.". We were to target such things as phone calls and emails from their homes as well as their places of work. This was her first or second week at the paper. Hundreds of thousands were killed. You have the UN resolution, we're all doing this together to stop the genocide or something, or it's self-defense, we're going to be attacked, it's so clear we're going to be attacked that we have to take pre-emptive action. We started working on this three years ago and even then it felt relevant in the sense that the challenges we talked about earlier: Where does my loyalty lie? ", Speaking to Gun, and seeing her in archival footage at the end of the film, it is clear that Knightley didn't try to emulate the look or sound of the real-life Gun. Because it was toughthe guy wouldnt print his stuff. And she thought she wouldnt get caught. She had been following that war, as many of us had, for a year. Gavin Hood: I asked her the same questions, and on about my second day interviewing her, I said to her, because I wasnt sure if I should make the movie; I mean, I needed to know whose story I was telling and if she was batshit crazy. So we just worked on the performance from the very what if it's you? Perhaps a plane painted in UN colors could be shot down over Iraq. Gavin Hood: There is a kind of cognitive dissonance. That's the memo. By the time Gun and around 100 of her colleagues received the emailed memo that would change her life, she had already come to the conclusion that the arguments for war with Iraq were not really valid arguments, she tells me. David Dayen: No problem. So important was this email, I knew it might even derail the case that Tony Blair was making for joining the Americans in an invasion. This is my second brief moment of fame. By the way, I know some amazing people in the intelligence services. For the future, I hope the film will help locate the missing pieces from the story. Supported by Liberty, the prominent British civil-rights campaigning organiza-tion, Gun and her lawyer, Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes), decided to cite grounds of necessity in order to contest the charges laid against her. The editorial position should never be that. Us, in any situation, wherever you work, I thought that's what this timeless about it. Theyre talking about diplomatic negotiations, and having all the cards on the table, but behind that what theyre doing is trying to bribe UN diplomatic members to vote for a war which has no legal justifications, Gun says. I didn't plan to have this movie out today and know what was going to be going on. 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 Gun had hoped the leak would prick the conscience of the British public, large sections of which were already taking to the streets in opposition to the war. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images). And just coming from my perspective, the press, because a lot of this is a story about the press, and how they handle it. WebIts the tale of whistleblower Katharine Gun, a former translator for the UKs Government Communications HQ, who leaked a top-secret memo in 2003 on the eve of a divisive US-led war. And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. By design. She had received an email in her inbox asking her and her colleagues to help in a vast intelligence "surge" designed to secure a UN resolution to send troops into Iraq. US firms waiting in the wings read to pump 'billions Parents' fury as schools STILL won't tell them if they are closed tomorrow as teacher strikes continue. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. 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. 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 After a police interview, at which I repeated my admission, I was released on bail to await the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service. Whistleblower and former employee of Britain's global surveillance center GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) Katharine Gun smiles as she speaks to the media during a press conference February 25, 2004 in London, England. So, Im not really answering your question well, but her feeling was just: Now I dont belong in this company. Had the film appeared any earlier, however, I dont think Id have been able to watch it, let alone help the makers. As a result, there never was any second UN resolution. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? They failed. So thats how the scene happened, but she didnt know where he was for three days, he was at Harmonsworth, before she got him out. Unfortunately. Perhaps they don't trust him to keep his word. Perhaps they knew it would come out in the courtroom that the entire conflict was based on lies about Saddams weapons of mass destruction and that key UN officials could have been blackmailed. Despite the risk of a harsher sentence, I decided to plead not guilty because I felt strongly that my actions had been intended to prevent the unnecessary loss of life in an illegal war. Id never seen anything like it. Director Gavin Hood Writers Sara Bernstein Gregory Bernstein Gavin Hood Stars Keira Knightley Matt Smith Matthew Goode Not good enough, the trio decided. Never mind that invading another country for the purpose of regime change is illegal according to international laws to which the United States is a signatory. "I think part of the reason Gavin included it was just to kind of share that thought process.". It's tough, the laws here are even stricter than in the UK. And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. 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. If there had been a UN resolution, there would have been no need to make a WMD argument because there are two legal ways to go to war. And in her case, she risked both her job and her freedom and whatever you think of her politically, I think that takes some guts. Why did the British authorities wait eight months before charging me and then drop the charges, claiming there was insufficient evi-dence for prosecution when I had confessed to the leak from the start? These superheroes, and I don't just mean superheroes in the movie sense, but larger-than-life big political figures, or Edward Snowden is almost mythical in his brilliance whether you like what he did or not, he is sort of not me. One is kind of what I thought it was, which is the CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency, walled off from politicians and the executive in a perfect world, where all the intelligence comes in, they analyze it and they then present their best intelligence estimates; this is pre-war, youre not at war, to the executive branch. So when I sent the script to Keira, and I was very hopeful that she would do it because she does a lot of period dramas, and you dont often see her in a modern drama and I thought shed be great. On the other hand, she and Ben, to this day, feel they never got their day in court. In fact, I had no idea what was going on. I grew up in South Africa in the seventies and eighties, when apartheid was really tightening and tightening and tightening. She talks about having read all these books [about the war]. Across the world, millions protested the invasion of Iraq, doing their own small parts to attempt to prevent the war. In the runup to the critical vote on war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN. In the matter of a few years. If the email did reach the newspapers, I reasoned, there would be no more than a discreet summary. Ms Gun worked as a translator at the GCHQ building in Cheltenham, pictured. 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. "But the more I think about what happened, the more angry and frustrated I get about the fact that nobody acted on intelligence. ", Hood added: "You know, to this day, I mean, the real journalistic question is, who would like to go and really press Lord Goldsmith and Ken McDonald for the reasons why they really dropped their case? I was arrested for a breach of section one of the Official Secrets Act 1989 and held overnight in a cell in the basement of the Cheltenham Police headquarters. Or at least, she could have been. Warning: The following contains spoilers for Official Secrets. Then, we all started watching the invasion and we werent how we got into the war. Or at least, she could have been. The invasion was a huge blow, says Gun. They live on a smallholding, renting a house, in rural Turkey. I don't think she thought they would deport her husband, I really don't think she thought that. Those are compelling and important qualities to see in characters that move through a story, and I feel like especially for women it's an under-valued active engine. According to the Guardian, You have no idea. She said, I was naive. And then there is the Gulf of Tonkin incident that led America deeply into war against North Vietnam. Gun disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. It remains entirely to the credit of Roger Alton, at the time the paper's editor, that he stuck with the story, despite its potential implications. "We started wondering whether we should do the blonde hair and the glasses and wondering about prosthetics, but one point Keira said to me, 'You know, the last thing I want is the audience to say, 'Oh, I don't know if I like her blonde,'" said Hood. Maybe that was naive, but she didn't think that. 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. So, she began to feel uncomfortable in the work she was doing at that point. And I thought this is going to end in the worst civil war. If I was writing this as fiction, I need a much longer court case, right? [Ahmed is depicted in the film as strongly pro-war, resistant to running stories that conflict with his opinion.]. The truth is when she speaks to me, and she says, Gavin, we also go to lunch like everybody else in any other office. That seems like the central undercurrent that is playing throughout the entire film. Sometimes movies can be an effective way to make forgotten stories part of our national narrative, and in that sense, Official Secrets comes not a moment too soon. She went to this interview, the next minute were down this rabbit hole, the next minute my wifes telling the world. Not the truth, but the war. Naturally, I was discreet. A transcript, lightly edited with explainers where necessary, follows. Thankfully, time passes and the intensity of feelings fades. Maybe thats rewarding. As it was, a second UN resolution directly to authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on 19 March 2003. Gun was visiting friends and family in Cheltenham when I talked to her, with the strain obvious on her face but still looking much younger than her 38 years. Iraq All Over Again? The decision to leak it was almost instant I felt I had no choice. She said to me, Gavin, I had no problem doing the work that involved a lot of listening in, in order to give information about trade negotiations, to give our country the advantage of trade negotiations when they go. Because I'm not ambitious it's not paramount for me to find myself in a high-paid job. Thank you! Then the story went EXCLUSIVE: Lanzarote sticks to its guns and insists it WILL limit tourists and move away from relying on Jeremy Clarkson is axed as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Two hours later after this deep dive, I called Ged back and said, How come we dont know this story? I guess the answer to that is that her story was big news for the day, and then very quickly got crushed by a bigger story, which was the story of the invasion. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer, en years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. So WMD may not have been as important, had they gotten that resolution. As one of the journalists who broke the story, I feel a certain responsibility for how things have turned out. 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. 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. Following the trauma inflicted on Gun, the U.K. Attorney General dropped the case against her with no warning. ", Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Keira Knightley's Birthday: Her 15 Best Movies Ranked, In the film, when Gun is sent an email from someone high up in the U.S. government that reveals the U.S. covert plan, she decides to leak it to Bright, who works for the British newspaper, Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun in "Official Secrets. Then the most almighty cacophony erupted, a roar so loud we could barely hear to speak. It is to say that we need to know the truth behind the decisions to act or not to act. And it's not an easy question, it sounds easy, but I don't think it is. That would be awkward. My shock turned to anger as the significance sank in. 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 United Nations. After the charges against her were dropped in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new I know what it is like to watch the system become completely authoritarian. She said, I worry what's going to happen, they'll go, Ooh, I don't know if I like Keira Knightly in blonde hair, what's she done to her nose, does she have glasses on? Because they don't have a comparison to make, until you see her at the end of the movie. But this specificinstance is the ugly truth of what goes on.". 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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