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. Now there is the possibility that Gun's singular life will be made into a movie. [3], Katharine Harwood moved to Taiwan in 1977 with her parents, Paul and Jan Harwood.

"But the more I think about what happened, the more angry and frustrated I get about the fact that nobody acted on intelligence. As one of the journalists who broke the story, I feel a certain responsibility for how things have turned out. Mrs Gun, 29, was fluent in Mandarin Chinese, a legacy of her upbringing in Taiwan.

"[5], Gun's regular job at GCHQ in Cheltenham was to translate Mandarin Chinese into English. 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. [2] 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, who were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the prospective 2003 invasion of Iraq. Gun disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. 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. [5] While at work at GCHQ on 31 January 2003, Gun read an email from Frank Koza, the chief of staff at the "regional targets" division of the American signals intelligence agency, the National Security Agency.[7]. [5], Gun graduated with an upper second-class degree, then took a job as an assistant English teacher with the JET program in Hiroshima, Japan. Most whistleblowers leak after the event to expose perceived wrongdoing. Gun sacrificed so much when she decided to leak and has worked only intermittently since.

[5] In 1993 she began studying Japanese and Chinese at Durham University. However, she is not without disappointment about how little obvious difference she made.

[12] The Guardian newspaper had reported plans to drop the case the previous week. Most directly, it bolstered opposition to the US position from Chilean and Mexican diplomats weary of American "dirty tricks". The case came to court on 25 February 2004. [5] In February, she travelled to London to take part in a demonstration against war with Iraq. Katharine Gun leaked that memo to the Observer, in the belief that the revelation of the proposed bugging and blackmail tactics might be enough to stop the … It is written by Sara and Gregory Bernstein, a California-based husband-and-wife writing partnership who have worked with British director Jonathan Lynn. [8] The plan might have contravened Articles 22 and 27 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which regulates global diplomacy. But this specific instance is the ugly truth of what goes on.". Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer, en years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary.

[13] 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. Throughout her own court case, what only a few knew was that she was also fighting for the right of her husband, who is from Turkey, to remain in the UK.

Not only was the cable the most sensitive ever to be disclosed on either side of the Atlantic, it was also unique in its timing. 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". 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. [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. A decade on, sitting in a cafe in Cheltenham, not far from GCHQ, I asked her if she still stood by what she had done.

[15], Her husband, Suat Gün,[4] is a Turkish Kurd.

Everyone involved assumed the project had run into the dust, but then it appeared on the Black List, a Hollywood website for unmade film scripts, which has featured Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech in the past. Katharine Teresa Gun (née Harwood)[1] (born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). By printing off the memo, putting it in her handbag and taking it home, she was already committing a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act. : Macron & Trump unafraid to broach anything, Trump confidante: He was 'blown away' by banquet, Merkel: Trump has his opinions, I have mine, Palestinian lawyer on the Trump peace plan, Comey: Possible Trump did not have 'corrupt intent', The widening schism between US and Israeli Jews, Buttigieg: 2020 election can't be all about Trump. A script has been doing the rounds in Hollywood for five years. But she said she would still be prepared to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war.

As of 2020[update] Gun lives in Turkey and Britain. [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. Since 2003, my life and Gun's have continued to cross from time to time. [11] Among them were Reverend Jesse Jackson, Daniel Ellsberg (the US government official who leaked the Pentagon Papers), and actor Sean Penn, who described her as "a hero of the human spirit".

She failed. 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, who were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the prospective 2003 … Katharine Gun, … The more we find out that in fact the million-person march was a real cause of worry for Downing Street and for Blair personally, it makes you think we were so close and yet so far.". [17] After she was acquitted in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new job. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny, as the defence was expected to argue that trying to stop an unlawful war of aggression outweighed Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act.

[6] She left teaching in 1999, and after some temporary jobs, finding it difficult to find work as a linguist, Gun applied to GCHQ in 2001, after reading a newspaper advertisement for the organisation. [6] Gun had previously been unaware of GCHQ, later saying that "I didn't have much idea about what they did...I was going into it pretty much blind. I sensed a slight flash of anger as she said: "It's not even a footnote in the history of Iraq." T en years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. "[9] Gun spent a night in police custody, and eight months later was charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence. 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. For the Observer too, it was a story full of risks.

negotiator: UK decision risks 'violence in N. Ireland', Eliot Cohen: I'm ashamed of the party I used to belong to, Chuck Schumer: Mitch McConnell is 'appalling', He managed Obama's 2008 campaign and gives Trump credit for this, Gore: Trump's climate denial 'fuels' protesters, US Amb. Her upbringing later led her to describe herself as a "third culture kid". Gun was outraged by the email, and took a printed copy of it home with her. The same countries demanded immediate answers from the British government about its involvement in the spying. [12] At the time, the reasons for the Attorney-General to drop the case were murky. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. He stated that Gun would not have received a fair trial without the disclosure of information that would have compromised national security. 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.

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