AMY GOODMAN: And this is a critical moment, when you say October, because thats when the U.S. Senate voted to authorize war. Theyre watching, you know, video games and bombs landing on Baghdadshock and awe. Why did you come in? Protesters against the invasion of Iraq, February 2003. GAVIN HOOD: This amazing lawyer, with great dignityElizabeth Wilmshurst, whos in the movie, Ralph Fiennes playing Ben Emmersonhas the cup of tea with her. Truth has a habit of . Katharine Gun (ne Harwood), 47, is married to Yasar Gn, a Turkish Kurd, with whom she has a 13-year old daughter. And looking back, its easy to be nostalgic about how things were with Bush and Blair, because it looks like these people were easier to hold to account. All I want to do is feel the emotions that this young woman felt, and dont want to be fussed over. And it was great. You get pulled over. We didnt talk about politics much. And the potential chink in the Official Secrets Act we had found, which could have become a defence for others, the defence of necessity [of speaking up to save imminent danger to life], it wasnt tested in court.. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood;[1] born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In the movie, her husband (Adam Bakri) is initially portrayed as a civilian, perceiving her job to be mundane. KATHARINE GUN: My MP, yes, at the time. Enter Katharine Gun. And Im saying, Ben, but how did you know, when you called for those documents, that theyd be there? And theres this pause. Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the film's LFF screening. Why did you drop the case? There is a small group of us, she says. A New Film Tells Her Story, Part 2: 15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun Risked Everything to Leak a Damning Iraq War Memo, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License, John le Carr (1931-2020) on the Iraq War, Corporate Power, the Exploitation of Africa & More, U.S. Plans Migrant Processing Centers in Latin America and Rapid Deportations from Southern Border, Food Shortages Worsen in Sudan as Battles Continue Despite Ceasefires, Abortion Ban Bills Fail in South Carolina and Nebraska, Keeping Abortion Legal Until 22 Weeks, Climate Protesters Descend on Podesta Talk to Demand Biden Admin Halt Fossil Fuel Projects, Mike Pence Testifies Before Jan. 6 Grand Jury, Vice News Tonight Canceled as Vice Media Fires Over 100 Staff, White Woman Whose False Accusation Led to Emmett Tills Lynching Dies Without Ever Facing Justice, Jeffrey Sachs on Chinas Historic Push for Multipolar World to End U.S. The argument was then subsumed by the war. He was going in every week to basically prove that he was still resident or that they could pinpoint where he was. However, during one such trip, her husband was detained by the authorities. 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 on whether to sanction an invasion of Iraq. KATHARINE GUN: Oh, yes, absolutely. And now you go back into work. We know this because Katharine Gun leaked a short 300-word NSA memo on this shortly before the invasion. Because it offered her both a resolution, and none? I wanted to go to the making of the filmKeira Knightley, did you meet with her?and also ask you, Gavin, about Keira taking on this role. Truth has a habit of finding a voice, however. (modern). [21], Gun received the Sam Adams Award for 2003 and was supported in her case by the UK human rights pressure group Liberty and in the US by the Institute for Public Accuracy. I think the number isand forgive me, I should have the figurethree-and-a-half thousand British and American soldiers, 37,000 wounded. And I had already not been able to eat for about 24 hours. Whatever you think of Kamala Harris, you can say, Which America do you want? KATHARINE GUN: Need I say more? I had, you know, encounters with Blair. Gun is not active on social media and occasionally participates in small-scale conferences and discussions pertaining to politics. And I didnt want to have a record. So, lots of leads there. So I was in a dreadful state. By Ben Davies BBC News Online political staff at the TUC in Brighton There is something about Katharine Gun that makes her seem an unlikely candidate for whistleblowing. And they said they would try their best. The country, at the time, was being drummed into war by the Blair government, desperate to achieve the United Nations sanction for the imminent American-led invasion of Iraq. ED VULLIAMY: Mr. Alton, screechy, ultra-right-wing. You dont know who the GCHQ person is. GAVIN HOOD: By Ralph Fiennes. Our Daily Digest brings Democracy Now! I grew up in Taiwan, which was a military dictatorship. Hes repackaged himself as sort of the European. This is Democracy Now! KATHARINE GUN: Mm-hmm. as Katharine knows, it can be tougher to be right than to be wrong sometimes, if on those lucky occasions that one is right. He gets more and more pressure from Blair. The comedown after they dropped the case, and trying to recover from that, was quite stressful.. And whats so marvelous about what Gavins done is to just sort of bring this back into the present. We can all have a view on Saddam Hussein and whether he should be deposed or not. MARTIN BRIGHT: Well, I mean, I think at that time, you knowwe knew, I suppose, by that point, that our paths were destined to cross. I mean, youre talking about the editorial leadership of The Observer, the editor-in-chief. AMY GOODMAN: So, theyre processing him. And, you know, he had nothing on him. I was the U.S. correspondent indeed, but very soon I was in Najaf, Nasiriyah, Fallujah, unembedded, watching this bloody carnage, thisthe implosion of this country. Considering the support it has received from its central character and the journalist who helped get the story published, 'Official Secrets' is an accurate dive into the events that happened. Given my experience I would want to hear what happened from the horses mouth, I think.. At the time, as I well remember, the paper was split in response to the talk of war. Lord Goldsmith must have saidI mean, I imagine. Ellsberg has called Katharine Guns action the most important and courageous leak I have ever seen. And the case was dropped. Anyway. Gun was asked by Special Branch officers why she had chosen to act as she had. [13] Speculation was rife in the media that the prosecution service had bowed to political pressure to drop the case so that any such documents would remain secret. [14] On the day of the court hearing, Gun said, "I'm just baffled in the 21st century we as human beings are still dropping bombs on each other as a means to resolve issues. I think youll find hes hiding in plain sight. And there was a dramatic hush in the audience. AMY GOODMAN: What was it called? Indeed, your point about Bush is right. Then we see her become this woman who's starting to really know herself and starting to try and identify her own feminine being and trying to find her own place in the boardroom as a woman, as an entity, as a sister and . To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org. She said, you know, its ironic that here we are in the age when women now have the vote, and theyre supposed to beand were all supposed to be equal, and yet so many roles are still about women being the sidekick, women being raped, so much violence, use ityou know, a woman whos in jeopardy. So, where is Gun now? There is no single answer to that, she says, but Bright had the best stab at it: The only thing you can do is do your job right, and be a good citizen., In other words, she says, whatever your job is, do the things that you are supposed to do. AMY GOODMAN: And your feelings at that time, Katharine? The diplomats were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the prospective 2003 invasion of Iraq. The woman in her 20s attempted to stop the war and firmly stood to her truthful morals. Im Amy Goodman, as we bring you Part 2 of our extended look at a new film thats out called Official Secrets, thats coming out at the end of August, that tells the story of a British intelligence specialist, Katharine Gun, who risked everything to blow the whistle on U.S. dirty tricks at the United Nations in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. The film stars Ma. KATHARINE GUN: Well, yeah, yeah. But a part of me thought: Damn we could have put the war on trial. AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did you do when they said, Were going to take each one of you into a room.. [5] While waiting to hear whether she would be charged, Gun embarked on a postgraduate degree course in global ethics at the University of Birmingham. And he says, I need toso, Im interviewing Ben in a pizza shop, right? Just trying to figure out what to do next. It was shown in the Castro Theatre. The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any records of legal advice about the lawfulness of the war that it had received during the run-up to the war. Youre breaking the speed limit. Inside the world of ministers' secrets", "Iraq war whistleblower's trial 'was halted due to national security threat', "Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood", "Official Secrets review Keira Knightley excels in Iraq war whistleblower drama", "15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun Risked Everything to Leak a Damning Iraq War Memo", "Film on British whistleblower's life to hit Turkish theaters", "Whistleblowerin Katharine Gun - "Ich wrde es wieder tun", "Sundance 2019: Premieres Include Harvey Weinstein Docu, Mindy Kaling, Dr. Ruth, UK Spies, Miles Davis & Ted Bundy", "Daniel Ellsberg speaking about Katharine Gun", In 2003, This U.K. Whistleblower Almost Stopped the Iraq Invasion. I think I found like the missing piece. Anyway, thats why the scene. Shes beginning to understand the issues, but she hasnt seen it yet, Gun said in 2019 when her daughter was 11-years-old. All rights reserved. But lets go back to the moment. Yeah, I mean, they knew, in fact, GCHQ, I think, because theres this system whereby, you know, before the news goes to print, the government and various organizations get the front pages, so they know whatslike, before it goes to press. White bread, white Trump, white, or this America, the one of every color, creed? You know, we dont have that. is a 501(c)3 non-profit news organization. But I wasnt thinking about myself really. Then, Katherine Knight took a butcher knife from next to her bed where she had always kept them and stabbed Price 37 times. Just occasionally Gun is invited to speak at conferences organised by the likes of accuracy.org or VIPS (the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity). We thought that maybe it would be a security expert who had got wind of this, or someone, I mean, relatively senior within GCHQ who was worried about what was going on, and, you know. Almost a million Iraqis. Her upbringing later led her to describe herself as a "third culture kid". She worked at the time at GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA." Ben Emmerson is. I was aware I was doing something I wasnt supposed to be doing. (In fact, those -our and -ise endings had been introduced by an Observer editorial assistant, innocently following house style guidelines as she copied out the memo into the system.) Whats the defense? So I was bailed until November, when they charged me. Some of the information that would have been revealed at her trial, in particular Lord Goldsmiths conflicting arguments as to the legality of the invasion, did not fully emerge until the publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry in 2016. In 2003, she leaked top-secret information to The Observer, concerning a request by the United States for compromising intelligence on diplomats from member states of the 2003 Security Council.The diplomats were due to vote on a second United . In 2003, Katharine Gun, a young specialist working for Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States' collaboration with . Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service and finally, struggling for work, left Britain altogether. And the memo was like this big red flag as soon as I saw it.. And he says, Well, I called Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who is the assistant attorney general, who had resigned. Thats [inaudible]. MARTIN BRIGHT: this was the real deal. [25][26] Together with journalist Peter Beaumont, Gun advised and consulted over the years it took to make the film and they are "very happy with the result.[20]. I was teaching Mandarin in the local college in Cheltenham. And they attempt to deport your husband, who is a? KATHARINE GUN: Actually, time-wise, I was bailed for eight months. But jokes aside, the reason she said to methe reason I constantly find myself going. I mean, we had imagined all sorts of things about who our source might be. GAVIN HOOD: What she discovers saysis a request from the NSA to GCHQ to hack, bug the private communications and the office communications of U.N. Security Council members, in particular the nonpermanent members, the more junior members. KATHARINE GUN: So, on Wednesday morning, I called in sick. But it is tempting to believe that is the case with Katharine Gun. ED VULLIAMY: Yes. I mean, couldnt have been happier with the casting choice, because Ben Emmerson is a force of nature, absolute force of nature, and a great international lawyer. AMY GOODMAN: I mean, youre the guy who broke the story that showed that Britain was collaborating with the U.S. in trying to get dirt on U.S. ambassadors, AMY GOODMAN: to get them to vote for the war in Iraq, which ended up killingwhat do you say at the end of the film? I denied it. Did everything change? Watching the film was like watching a case that was very similar to my own: Katharine Gun, photographed last month in Durham. I mean, this has been going on for a number of years, and it always sort of ended up kind of petering out, so, GAVIN HOOD: Other people had approached you before. Iraq now, nightmare. Does he try to treat it? Film-makers generally like to glamorise newspaper offices, making them All the Presidents Men hothouses of high-level argument and intrigue. It just means that the job is even more difficult than it was before. The little-told story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun leaves a trail of unanswered questions worth probing, even 16 years later, . Consider donating here. One question that recurs, she says, comes from audience members asking what they should do, how they should behave, in the current mendacious political climate. Her life story is depicted in the new film Official Secrets. In Part 2 of our discussion, we speak with Katharine Gun; the British journalists who reported on Guns revelations in The Observer newspaper, Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy; and Gavin Hood, director of Official Secrets.. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Timpf, 32, and Friscia, 34, tied the knot . [5] Less than a week after the Observer story, on Wednesday 5 March, Gun confessed to her line manager at GCHQ that she had leaked the email, and was arrested. But as it happened, I wasnt called up on Monday. GAVIN HOOD: Ben Emmerson. I mean, MI6 couldnt do that. Of course he does. You want to know where he is?. Gun is on Mondays episode of the Guardian podcast Today in Focus, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. [6] Gun had previously been unaware of GCHQ, later saying that "I didn't have much idea about what they didI was going into it pretty much blind. Laggies. AMY GOODMAN: Who is played in the film by? And you had a showing in San Francisco. Keira Knightley: Iraq was the first time Id been politically engaged, Leaking or briefing? to your inbox each morning. He succumbed to his wounds and Knight dragged his body downstairs, skinned him, and hung his body from a meat hook in the living room. So, from a dramatic point of view, you have someone whos just going to their job every day, as most of us do, happens to be a spy working for GCHQ, but could have been a person working for an accounting firm or Enron or Boeing or any other organization, who sees something that is simply wrong, sees, you know, and says, GAVIN HOOD: and says, Im going to speak up.. Zooey Zephyr, Montanas First Trans Lawmaker, Speaks Out After Being Banned & Silenced by Republicans, Rising Tide of Fascism: Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones Warns of GOPs Growing Embrace of Authoritarianism, Courage Is Contagious: Zooey Zephyr & Justin Jones on the GOPs Silencing of State Lawmakers, Provocative & Dangerous: Biden to Send Nuclear-Armed Subs to South Korea as Activists Demand Peace, Oklahoma Parole Board Denies Clemency for Richard Glossip, Rejecting Plea from State Attorney General. In Turkey, close to her husbands family, Gun and her partner, Yasar, could raise their child in peace. So I saw people going in and coming out and going in and coming out. I mean, not the greatest decision of my life, I have to say. Your question about now, this is all terribly relevant. AMY GOODMAN: So, before the time of the trial, Katharine, youthey have clamped down on you. You know, banks of civil servants couldnt do that. He didnt know I had leaked this memo. KATHARINE GUN: Well, hes Turkish, from a Kurdish background, yeah. Be consistent. And when he didnt come out, I was panicking, you know, and I ran inside. In Official Secrets, Gun is played by Keira Knightley while Matt Smith takes on the role of Martin Bright. Details at membership.theguardian.com. Im sure that what Katharine felt when in 2010 we found out that Lord Goldsmith had declared the war, in his advice, illegal, must have been pretty painful for Katharine to hear, as it was for me when Congress said, I think around 2004, '05, we knew, actually, there were no weapons of mass destruction. Dont just swallow what politicians tell you. [16], Her husband, Yaar Gn,[17][18] is a Turkish Kurd. Sometimes you break stories, and networks ring you and say they want to interview you, and then they drop you because of the agenda. Initially, Gun decided to teach Mandarin Chinese in Britain. KATHARINE GUN: Well, OK, I know I was guilty in the facts of the matter. [5] Gun heard no more of the email, and had all but forgotten about it until Sunday 2 March, when she saw it reproduced on the front page of The Observer newspaper. And that was it. Yes. Get Democracy Now! Please do your part today. And all of a sudden the news media is not interested in how we got into the war. Following the incident, Gun struggled to find work that she loved, and her husband had grown disillusioned with Britain. The author advocates anonymity. [12] At the time, the reasons for the Attorney-General to drop the case were murky. And so, theyre first prize was get the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution saying that we, as a collective United Nations, are going to take out Saddam Hussein. Martin Bright and Ben Emmerson stick by Kathrine the whole time .
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