Katherine Gun: British Secret Services Whistleblower on Iraq War & US Spying

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• published: 12 Jun 2014
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The Expert Witness Radio Show with Michael Levine and Mark Marshall - primarily centers around issues of government ineptitude and media complacency -- with a particular focus on politics and the intelligence community. Not to say that the show is limited to those subjects... for over a decade, we have covered a wide range of topics, both unusual and un-mainstream. With a great array of knowledgeable guests, the show covers stories that aren't being covered elsewhere. Broadcast in NYC at WBAI-FM. Todays Guest: One of the UK's most significant whistleblowers In the runup to the critical vote on war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN. In 2003 a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. 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. 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. She was horrified and leaked the email to the Observer. As a result of the story the paper published some 10 years ago she was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act. The memo from Frank Koza, chief of staff at the "regional targets" section of the National Security Agency, GCHQ's sister organisation in the US, remains shocking in its implications for British sovereignty. 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". 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". The story went around the world and the leak electrified the international debate during the weeks of diplomatic deadlock. Most directly, it bolstered opposition to the US position from Chilean and Mexican diplomats weary of American "dirty tricks". The same countries demanded immediate answers from the British government about its involvement in the spying. 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. 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. 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. She failed. 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. 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. Gun said that the UK government still had some explaining to do: "I think there need to be more questions asked about whether they responded to that request, why they felt it was within their scope of work to respond to that sort of request, and what is the manner of the relationship between UK politics and US politics. She was "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War". Daniel Ellsberg, the celebrated American whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the build-up to the war in Vietnam, described it as "the most important and courageous leak I have ever seen".He added: "No one else -- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it." Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war: Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/02/usa.iraq?guni=Article:in%20body%20link GCHQ whistleblower charged: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/nov/14/freedomofinformation.iraq?guni=Article:in%20body%20link US plan to bug Security Council: the text (Online document) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/02/iraq.unitednations1?guni=Article:in%20body%20link Spy case casts fresh doubt on war legality http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/26/freedomofinformation.iraq?guni=Article:in%20body%20link