Katharine Gun was a translator at GCHQ, when she received an email in her inbox from Frank Koza, a leading figure in the American National Security Agency. But within days, Bush declared he no longer needed UN backing and invaded anyway. Acclaimed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg described Katharine Guns action as the most important and courageous leak I have ever seen. Dan Ellsberg said, No one elseincluding myselfhas ever done what Katharine Gun did: tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it.. After the meeting, the Brits and the Americans shook hands on the tarmac and walked to their planes. She wondered if the economic sanctions that were supposed to choke Saddams dictatorship were instead, as the critics maintained, causing a genocide of Iraqis. GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun speaks out. It looked like a very exciting story. Her case became awidespread controversy among activists, and many people stepped forward to urge the government to drop the case. Don't worry, we'll never share or sell your information. Her late husband, Tom, a former special agent of the FBI and one-time head of . AMANPOUR: by somebody within your organization. I was sort of I felt like I was blinkered as a horse. Gun, outraged by the USA's actions, printed a copy of the email and took it home. There was also the question of the plea: would she admit to being guilty or argue her innocence? Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. Bush remembers his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, saying to him: I hope thats not the last time we ever see them.. That level of pressure, stress and attention took its toll. When she was acquitted in 2004, it was difficult for her to find a new job that she liked. GUN: Thats right. Katharine Teresa Gun, fdd Katharine Teresa Harwood 1974, r en brittisk lingvist och visselblsare. TINTIN: And now youre upset at being asked to do that to members of the Security Council. So, we had a terrible moment where we had seen organizations follow the story up. Theres a back story. This is of no use to me at all. And she turned the piece of paper over, and on the back someone had written the header information. As of 2020, Gun and her husband Yasar live in both Turkey and Britain. "The problem was that I just didn't feel guilty," she tells me. Gun was cleared of a charge under the Official Secrets Act after being fired for revealing a secret e-mail. The film is directed by Gavin Hood, and Gun is portrayed . The person responsible for the jeopardy to face Blair and the coalition in invading Iraq was as well as Bush and Blair themselves a young translator at GCHQ, Katharine Gun. "It felt like the protests were what would stop the war," she says. Soon after, they moved to Turkey in 2011, and for the most part, the family has stayed away from the public . e-mail; 239. shares. Katharine Gun who's played by Keira Knightley in a forthcoming film blew the whistle on a dodgy scheme by the American government. She says this breach was a foolish one-off. After university and a couple of years teaching in Japan, she was back in Britain and looking for a job. In 2003, Katharine Gun was working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, the intelligence agency similar to the National Security Agency here, when she opened a top-secret NSA memorandum. KATHARINE GUN: My husband had absolutely nothing to do with this. In Official Secrets, Gun is played by Keira Knightley while Matt Smith takes on the role of Martin Bright. You wanted to stop the Iraq war. She had leaked a secret email revealing what was called at the time an illegal dirty tricks campaign to fix the UN vote. Katharine Gun has a much better grasp of the true spirit of democracy than Tony Blair. Any intelligence gathered would be used as leverage to coerce those nations into sanctioning a war in Iraq. You know, its not every day you get a top-secret memo, and not just a top-secret memo from GCHQ, but a top-secret memo from the NSA sent to GCHQ. The message requested Katharine's assistance in co-ordinating an illegal US-UK spy operation which would secure UN authorisation for the Iraq invasion. Ross has black color eyes and black color hair. This is a rush transcript. August 31 2019, 5:30 a.m. Keira Knightley, as whistleblower Katharine Gun, in the 2019 movie "Official Secrets." Photo: Nick Wall/IFC. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood; born 1974) is a British whistleblower who worked as a linguist at the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ; a British intelligence facility) from 2001 to 2003. It's just, back then, she didn't realise quite what her employer could be capable of. She headed up to Yorkshire and went into hiding, as a media circus descended onto Cheltenham to find her. You see this headline splashed across the front page. KATHARINE GUN: Well, no, I was in a shock when I saw it. Koza's email outlined an American plot to conduct surveillance on the United Nations offices in Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan to find out whether they would vote in favour of supporting the American invasion of Iraq. We speak with a British whistleblower whose attempts to expose lies about the Iraq invasion was called \"the most important and courageous leak\" in history by acclaimed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. This is the trailer. Plus a change The warI mean, our obligation is not whether we support or are against the war. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood; born 1974) is a British whistleblower who worked as a linguist at the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ; a British intelligence facility) from 2001 to 2003. And what happened? I had no idea what was going to happen to me and my life kind of came to a standstillit was a struggle emotionally, financially, mentally, said Gun of that time. delivered to your inbox every day? MARTIN BRIGHT: No, it was a very unusual situation. ; Democrats Reintroduce, Mississippi Enacts Transgender Healthcare Ban for Youth Amid Spate of Anti-Trans Laws in Red States, Tennessee Gov. GAVIN HOOD: Who were the nonpermanent members on the U.N. Security Council at the time. Otherwise we are living in dictatorships. Whos that? I said, Im ringing about the GCHQ memo that you sent. Click. This presented a problem. A new film, Official Secrets, tells the story of her actions and subsequent arrest. Our Daily Digest brings Democracy Now! Martin, talk about how you got this memo. JERRY: [played by Chris Reilly] Hes a Muslim. These worries crystalized when GCHQ sent her to San Diego for a conference and she was invited on to an American aircraft carrier. Katharine read the content carefully, and immediately felt sick to her stomach: it was a classified directive from the American authorities asking the British to spy on six UN Security Council members. But its just because the copy editor ran it through spell check. Gun, 29, was . Ad Choices, In any walk of life, you can choose to do the right thing, whistle-blower Katharine Gun, whom Knightley plays in the film, told, Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Fragile Snowflake Donald Trump for Allegedly Trying to Censor Him, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 1, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. You know, look at me. KATHARINE GUN: Well, it was a memo from a chap called Frank Koza, who worked at the NSA. The next morning, Katharine returned to the office as normal and got on with her work, trying as best as she could to not think about it. Iraq War was in March. But there were a group of journalists within the newsroom who trusted each other, had worked together previously. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. Was it? Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war. She became the spy who tried to stop a war. Starring: Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode. It was an extraordinary moment. Yasar's wife is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters. Eight months later, she was charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people. interviewed Katharine Gun. In January 2003, British intelligence analyst Katharine Gun read an email from U.S. officials who were trying to enlist their British counterparts in a public relations campaign to support . I could tell this email was pretty explosive.". AMY GOODMAN: Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill. In November 2002, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441, which called on Iraq to get rid of chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles. His wife then took the help of MP Nigel Jones and managed to free him, and gave him the right to stay in the UK. When Katharine Gun came across a memo while working for the British government in 2003, her whole world changed. Everybody knows it. I mean, you were the man of the hour. We need another Katharine Gun. KATHARINE GUN: Well, they dropped the charges against me. The email wasnt even meant for her. When asked by Salon how it felt to see a famous actress act out her life for an audience . It seemed like it was, you know, the wagons were rolling fast and furious towards this awful situation and I was kind of in tunnel vision. KATHARINE GUN: If we do not go public, we would be conceding that no one can ever tell the people when their government is lying. This is her story. No, you just do not do stuff like that. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood) (born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). "Yeah, I suppose so," she says. She is his first try at marriage, and evidently, he's enjoying his beginner's luck. It took a maddeningly long periodeight months of existential limbobefore Gun was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. Her story was adapted into the film Official Secrets in 2019. After the incident, Katharine struggled to find work, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain and then . Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.orgPlease consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! Its 15 years later. Katharine Gun : I work at GCHQ. She was arrested and held at the police station in Cheltenham for 24 hours before being bailed. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Sign up for our Daily News Digest today! Katharine Gun works for British Intelligence, but struggles with the lies governments are telling the public in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. We were basically going to put the Iraq War on trial, she said. Due to the pandemic, the event was then canceled. Please do your part today. On the night of the 19th of March, 2003, the bombs began to fall. You think this is real, but you do have to track it down. Again, this is before the Iraq War. I tried, too, without success. It would show that there isnt a double standard. Soon, Katharine was in touch with John Wadham, then Director of Liberty. She couldnt shake the indelible images of the turkey shoot of retreating Iraqis on the Highway of Death during the first Gulf War in 1991, the road out of Kuwait strewn with burnt-out vehicles and charred bodies. MARTIN BRIGHT: The top had been ripped off of the memo. The western leading man, Sam Elliott, first met his famous actress wife, Katharine Ross, on the set of a movie. Katharine Gun is a for mer linguist and analyst at Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency and an Iraq war whistle-blower. BEN EMMERSON: You chose loyalty to your country over loyalty to your government, your marriage and yourself. Neither have many others, especially . We had just come from a press conference with the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, better known as Comical Ali. Nerves tingling, she went home. Keira Knightley is persuasive as Katharine Gun, a British GCHQ employee who in 2003 leaked a sensitive document in the hopes of preventing her country from invading Iraq a decision that did . KATHARINE GUN: When I saw this email asking GCHQs help to bug the six swing nations to gather a vote for war with Iraq, I was very angry at first and very saddened that it had come to this, and that despite all the talk from both Tony Blair and George Bush about how important it was to get the U.N. on board and to legitimize any kind of aggression, that they were actually going around it in such low-handed manner. What I object to is being asked to gather intelligence to help fix a vote at the U.N. and deceive the world into going to war. Katharine Gun knew exactly the sort of work she was employed to do; two years into a job at GCHQ as a Mandarin "analyst" and "translator", it's hard not to. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you work for the British government? But when her name was released to the press, she did a few interviews before trying to reclaim her anonymity. Official Secrets is a movie about real-life whistleblower Katharine Gun, a relatively low-level British Intelligence agent (she was a translator in the Government Communications Headquarters) who . In 2004, Democracy Now! After the incident, Katharine struggled to find work, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain and then kept away from the general public eye. A month later, the Observer splashed the story over its front page. "Even thinking about it all would cause me anxiety," she says, "but now I am ready." Hilary Duff and husband Matthew Koma enjoy adorable family day out with their . It would show that when our politicians break the law they are held accountable. There is no chance of such a war crimes trial. And what we are seeing is a movement of people who are trying to stop it. Katharine Gun, former intelligence specialist turned whistleblower, discusses the new film "Official Secrets" which details why she leaked a classified memo. Thats Keira Knightley playing Katharine Gun, whos in our studio now, the whistleblower, former British spy, worked for British intelligence, explaining why she leaked this memo, which would get to the press, which would get to The Observer, which brings us to our next two guests, Martin Bright and as well as Ed Vulliamy. A Single Conscience V. the State. Hood's film dramatizes events in 2003 and 2004, beginning with British whistleblower Katharine Gun's decision to leak a memo exposing the criminality of the Iraq War and ending with her . At the time, the paper, their paper, The Observer, was openly supporting the Iraq invasion, leading up to it. But nonetheless, you wanted to do that. It has been suggested that the government was desperate to ensure that documents containing advice about the legality of the war which the defence had requested would not be made public. She is played (with simmering intensity) by Keira Knightley. KATHARINE GUN: I work for the British people. If people knew about this, nobody would support this invasion.. Enter Katharine Gun. In his memoir of office, Decision Points, George W. Bush writes about going to see Tony Blair in the Azores in the last days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. Angola, Cameroon, Bulgaria, Chile, GAVIN HOOD: Pakistan and Mexico. We're sitting together in a quiet room at the headquarters of human rights organisation Liberty, just around the corner from the streets through which . Yeah, and those are the. That contact had connections with the antiwar movement. Were joined also by Martin Bright, who is the journalist who reported Guns revelations in The Observer, as well as Ed Vulliamy. When Gun exposed that the U.S. and U.K. wanted information on United Nations diplomats to persuade the vote on the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush was President of the United States and Tony Blair was the British Prime Minister of the U.K. Guns information affected Blairs politics and government at the time, but he has seemingly recovered from the incident. The Man Who Deleted His Past Before He Was Found Dead. When Katharine blew the secret off the American-British spy efforts in 2003, her husband was thrown into troubled waters, which few people knew. Between the worlds greatest democracy and a murderous dictatorship, it seemed easy to know whom to believe. At the time, her actions received very little attention from journalists in the United Statesunless you were watching Democracy Now! As the build-up to war continued, Gun felt increasing dismay. 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