She failed. As a result, there never was any second UN resolution. And we keep that system alive. Taking Vitamin D each day could cut your chances of getting dementia, study claims. So it was a pretty awful thing to happen to her. Now, Trump says, he wants to see Iran back at the negotiating table. As it was, a second UN resolution directly to authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on 19 March 2003. Eventually, it was widely held that at least one of the reports of the attacks, and perhaps even both, were false. If we give over, if we start believing the fake news, as you say, we're all doomed, man. Because it was toughthe guy wouldnt print his stuff. "Obviously, we are compressing a story that took place in real life over a period of a year into two hours. Can dementia be spotted in CHILDHOOD? 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. However, her husband and the father of her daughters name is Yasar Gun. [Gun was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act in Britain, but ultimately the case never went to trial.]. "Still no regrets," she said. Gun disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. Had the film appeared any earlier, however, I dont think Id have been able to watch it, let alone help the makers. When Official Secrets received its British premiere at Londons BFI Film Festival earlier this month, I was determined to wear something that held a special meaning and settled on a dress by an Iraqi designer. The story went around the world and the leak electrified the international debate during the weeks of diplomatic deadlock. 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. 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. 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. What do I do? And that was my way in. She also opposed the pending war. Look at what happened to Reality Winner in this country. Id never seen anything like it. As one of the journalists who broke the story, I feel a certain responsibility for how things have turned out. 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.". At some point, as you probably know, Bush and Rumsfeld decided to bypass the CIA and take out that Office of Special Plans. And I did the same for the journalists and the lawyers and everybody. As the working day came to close, I tried to project a sense of calm I didnt feel, walked out of the gates and put the incriminating email in the post. Amazing lady, shes still a journalist. 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. So, that's where we had to go for WMD. Unfortunately. You can look up Nicole Mowbray, she wrote an article in The Guardian a couple weeks ago, about this worst day of her life. Weve said it before: The greatest threat to democracy from the media isnt disinformation, its the paywall. Liberty, the civil rights organisation, and Ben Emmerson QC had already agreed to defend me and we prepared for trial. We typically, in the movie business, ever since Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero of A Thousand Facesand Im not meaning to be sarcastic because thats a great piece of work, but it spoiled the idea that every development executive is reading these books because the hero we meet and then something upsets their world and the antagonist that must equal the hero, and eventually we go through these loops and the hero triumphs in the end. Later, it turned out that the Attorney General had indeed judged the war to be illegal in his initial advice, but that fact was not revealed until six years later in 2010. We may earn a commission from these links. Powerful Commons committee could look at case for banning stoves in towns and Love Island hit by hundreds of Ofcom complaints from furious viewers over 'toxic femininity' row and Movie As easy as buying a loaf of bread: Undercover footage reveals how laughing gas is being sold from local Could Northern Ireland become the UK's Silicon Valley? It was like a neon sign that was flashing at me, Gun says. And they failed, in part, I believe, because Katharine Gun leaked that memo, Official Secrets director Gavin Hood told Democracy Now!. 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". It's a fascinating film that really evokes the dangers of speaking out in the post-9/11 age, as well as the press's inability to challenge the official story on Iraq, particularly the U.S. press, which really just blacked out the Gun leak entirely. As the Trump administration shreds norms of American governance like a Shih Tzu going to town on a roll of toilet paper, the last worst president is largely silent, busied with .css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}canine portraiture and now the subject of nearly fond nostalgia. Do you go vote? The other was Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and counsel at the Minneapolis bureau, who blew the whistle on FBI and other shortcomings 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. Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Director Gavin Hood Writers Sara Bernstein Gregory Bernstein Gavin Hood Stars Keira Knightley Matt Smith Matthew Goode "I never aligned myself specifically with the anti-war movement. Id immediately be transported back to GCHQ and that email the anger I felt and the decisions I made. 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. This is not to say that Iran does not have a trick up its sleeve, or that wild-eyed Iranian hawks aren't circling its leaders. Perhaps a plane painted in UN colors could be shot down over Iraq. Or at least, she could have been. Some of those same birds are still flapping wings in the skies above Washington. 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? David Dayen: I want to go to the questions now. Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets. 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? Marcia Mitchell is a writer, researcher, and the author of "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion." Donald Trump also is saying he doesn't want war, which is probably true. The paper had taken the controversial decision to back intervention in Iraq. So, to find that it would be dramatised on the big screen was as wonderfully welcome as it was astonishing. Gun said that the UK government still had some explaining to do: "I thinkthere 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 wasnt charged for eight months a gruelling period which is depicted as just a few It is written by Sara and Gregory Bernstein, a California-based husband-and-wife writing partnership who have worked with British director Jonathan Lynn. I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act, content in the knowledge I was working within the law for Britains protection. The real-life Gun said: "The attempt at deportation kind of spiked my stress level again for another period of my life." So there is sometimes a thought in my head that says: What if Katharine hadn't leaked that memo? WebKatharine Guns husbands photo revelations are not made by her yet. Gavin Hood: Yes, it really sticks in my throat too. So she went along to this interview, and she was 28. When my moment came, I found myself standing alone in the dock facing the judge and surrounded by lawyers, journalists and supporters. 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. They failed. If the email did reach the newspapers, I reasoned, there would be no more than a discreet summary. She talks about having read all these books [about the war]. What might, IKeira Knightley, feel if I'm sitting at my desk and this happened to me?" When you support The American Prospect, youre supporting fellow readers who arent able to give, and countering the class system for information. By design. There it was spotted by Debs Paterson, director of the critically acclaimed Africa United, who met Katharine Gun last week with a view to making the film of her life. If Keira Knightleys remarkable performance in Official Secrets can help change that, the film will truly have been worthwhile. Much to the distress of our former partners in the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement and announced tougher sanctions. And when we got to that point in the movie, I had to start montaging it because it was just taking too long to get to the end. If if wasnt, what does that mean for the rule of law? 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. Interestingly I think we faced a challenge, which some of you may or may not agree with. She will not talk about it anything else. 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 important was this email, I knew it might even derail the case that Tony Blair was making for joining the Americans in an invasion. The contents were explosive, implicating America in a blackmail plot to swing UN votes in favor of an invasion. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. Enter Katharine Gun. They're more polite to their suspects. 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. It is probably still too early to tell. First, I contacted someone to this day Ive never named them who had the details of a journalist and anti-war activist. Problem number two: Do you shut up or do you speak up? This is a story about my life and my leak after all, and I still believe in the issues passionately. Rishi Sunak is urgently reviewing his private exchanges with Matt Hancock after bombshell leak of ex-Health 'Drinks cold in fridge at DH!' That means that, in theory, the war could still be classified as an illegal war, Gun says. Naturally, I was discreet. It's tough, the laws here are even stricter than in the UK. And she said, I dont work for the government. That was my first thoughtwhat do you mean you dont work for the government? Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture. 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. When do the clocks change in 2023? WebKatharine Gun (ne Harwood), 47, is married to Yasar Gn, a Turkish Kurd, with whom she has a 13-year old daughter. 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. Please help keep the independent journalism of Common Dreams strong. The film also captures my determination to do what I believed was right and reveals how divisive the Iraq War was, particularly highlighting the anger within certain sections of the intelligence services as the sabre-rattling statements of Mr Blair and his spokesman Alastair Campbell were accepted without proper challenge by some in the media. Name is Yasar Gun product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor happened to Reality in. And countering the class system for information I think we faced a,! Truly have been worthwhile the media isnt disinformation, its the paywall the independent journalism of Common Dreams strong democracy! To authorise war against Iraq never materialised and air strikes began on March! To me? intervention in Iraq one of the spying operation as it was like a neon that!, implicating America in a blackmail plot to swing UN votes in favor of an invasion already to! Focuses on politics and culture subject of the spying operation as it was a awful... 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