WebThe Katharine Gun Case. 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. But get out of that trailer as fast as possible, get onto the set, and work from inside? And maybe they were right, I don't know. Iraq All Over Again? 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? "I never aligned myself specifically with the anti-war movement. Surely, after 16 years, we are entitled to have answers. I didnt know the story and I googled her. Not good enough, the trio decided. I grew up in South Africa in the seventies and eighties, when apartheid was really tightening and tightening and tightening. It is to say that a government, for its own reasons may, either by design or through miscalculation, lead a country into an unnecessary and brutal war. Feel free to republish and share widely. She thought wow, they need a Mandarin translator at GCHQ. But George W. Bush did something that, thankfully, Trump hasnt pulled off yet: He took us to war. In the years following, an author called Marcia Mitchell contacted me and said she was keen to write a book about my case. We all, in some ways, make these decisions. She wasnt charged for eight months a gruelling period which is depicted as just a few Not the truth, but the war. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. And for her, this was too much. Moment fitness influencer asks man to move off park bench 'because he's 'ruining her livestream' - but Mortgage demand plummets to a 28-year low as average interest rates hit 6.71% - just as spring home buying Britain braces for brutal -9C Arctic snap: Met Office warns more snow and ice could lash the country next Is YOUR wood burner at risk? The point of all of this is painfully obvious. In leaking it to the Observer, she was also doing something unprecedented in the history of espionage. I didn't plan to have this movie out today and know what was going to be going on. My shock turned to anger as the significance sank in. Now the goal is not truth, it is victory. The invasion was a huge blow, says Gun. We may earn a commission from these links. 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. We had planned to demand that the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith disclose the advice he had given on the legality of the war and so put the war itself on trial. Id never seen anything like it. Iran, meanwhile, says it doesn't want war, but will defend itself. I never thought Id be choosing a dress for a red carpet appearance at a major film festival. Across the world, millions protested the invasion of Iraq, doing their own small parts to attempt to prevent the war. But Katharine only ever leaked this one memo. In a year that the U.S. president is accused of pressuring foreign governments for political gain, the story behind the film Official Secrets seems particularly timely. ", The real Martin Bright (left), as played by Matt Smith (right) in "Official Secrets. 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. It left me in an impossible predicament. David Dayen: How did you think Keira Knightley was an asset in showing that emotional journey throughout the movie? And that's quite a depressing place to find yourself in when you feel so strongly and passionately about something. Jeb Bush Just Botched the Iraq Question. 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. WebWe 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 When my moment came, I found myself standing alone in the dock facing the judge and surrounded by lawyers, journalists and supporters. In the matter of a few years. It's tough, the laws here are even stricter than in the UK. A script has been doing the rounds in Hollywood for five years. You may not know the name Katharine Gun unless you live in the United Kingdom, but she was a pivotal figure in the run-up to the Iraq War. When my turn came, I entered a small side office, faced the security official and, putting on my best poker face, denied any involvement. WebAnd they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo, Official Secrets director Gavin Hood told Democracy Now!. What do I do? And that was my way in. So Im very proud of Keiras performance and I dont mind that she doesnt have blonde hair. And she and many in her world knew, and many in the CIA knew, as Mel Goodman who's the man in the boathouse in Washington knew, that this was B.S. She now has a four-year-old daughter who she is bringing up in Turkey. ", Left: Dave Benett/Getty. Hundreds of thousands were killed. WebI disappeared with my husband down to the coast in Brighton, on the coast of England, and spent some time away from the limelight, Gun said in the interview. 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. But, did it change the way I approached it? So here we are in rehearsal, and we're talking one day about the look. A manufactured provocation. Or at least, she could have been. She was horrified and leaked the email to the Observer. 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. 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. [Ahmed is depicted in the film as strongly pro-war, resistant to running stories that conflict with his opinion.]. Chile and Mexico and the other smaller countries were so outraged that they refused to even bring it to a vote. To legitimize an invasion and get rid of Saddam, a new UN Security Council resolution, going beyond SC1441 and specifically sanctioning the invasion, was the answer. Its Straussian, over the top and pretentious but basically amounts to this. For all the relief, there was a weird sense of anti-climax that we would now be unable to give our side of the story to the public. Perhaps a plane painted in UN colors could be shot down over Iraq. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images). Koza was in effect issuing a direct order to the employees of a UK security agency to gather "the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises". The increasing presence of US Navy ships and a B-52 bomber task force in their neighborhood might provoke the Iranians to load up their missiles. And if, 16 years ago, you had told me that one day my life story would be portrayed by Keira Knightley, Id have laughed and changed the subject. I am an American citizen; I have a strange accent but Ive been here 25 years; my kids were born here. 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 Gun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since. Gun disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. It sounds big with Katharine but that's what inspired me. But she still was not uncomfortable with the other things we've talked about. 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. [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. Indeed the action movie beats the living hell out of the bad guy, or if its every other Marvel movie, beats the hell out of all the bad guys. Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service 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. But depicting that climate, people who were not aware or active at that timedidn't realize how difficult this was to talk against the war both from the journalist's perspective and obviously someone who's in the intelligence community. And she said, I dont work for the government. That was my first thoughtwhat do you mean you dont work for the government? And it's also true that we were then attacked by the Drudge Report for what would now be called 'fake news. You work for the government. Then, the following November, after eight months of worry, I was finally charged. I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act, content in the knowledge I was working within the law for Britains protection. ", "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. As Bright noted, however, what we see in the movie is close to the real events. Can dementia be spotted in CHILDHOOD? Direct to your inbox. "One of the things that we discovered quite early on when he was interviewing me was that a lot of stuff was just happening in my head. This meant that a lot of the things that we see Gun go through in the film actually took far longer in real life. I was only a junior analyst, but I knew the email was outrageous: the American government was asking Britain to spy on United Nations diplomats so they could be blackmailed into supporting an invasion of Iraq. "Financially it's the toughest," she said. 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. And it's a tough profession in many ways. "And she then said: 'My way into this is what would I as the unadorned, no-makeup, no-fancy-edges Keira Knightley what would I feel like if this memo landed on my desk?'". Surely, she thought, when people realised that the UK was being asked to collaborate in an operation to find out personal information that could be used to blackmail UN delegates, they would be outraged and the UK government would halt its slide into war. Americans find it hard to believe that it could happen, but it happens, it happens fast. Some called her a traitor; others insisted she was a hero. However, Gun was well aware that any attempt to release the memo would find her running afoul of Britains Official Secrets Act, which criminalizes the leaking of intelligence-related information. What might, IKeira Knightley, feel if I'm sitting at my desk and this happened to me?" the waning support for public institutions today. WebGun, then 28, received an email about a U.S.-led operation enlisting the help of Britain to spy on other countries, in an attempt to blackmail them into supporting the Iraq War. And then there is the Gulf of Tonkin incident that led America deeply into war against North Vietnam. WebHer husband, Yaar Gn, is a Turkish Kurd. Where do you draw the line? Twenty-eight, pretty naive. I actually think the little memo lands on our lap more often than we think, even if it's just who I should vote for. After the leak was published, hundreds of staff inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity of the whistleblower. Down over Iraq in UN colors could be shot down over Iraq it happens fast I didnt the. Here 25 years ; my kids were born here are in rehearsal, and we 're talking one about! Surely, after 16 years, we are entitled to have this movie out today and know what going. The leak was published, hundreds of staff inside the building were questioned in order to discover the identity the... Was really tightening and tightening and tightening will defend itself which is depicted as just few... 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