The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War
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In the United Kingdom, this same mythical character reignited controversy over the provisions and effectiveness of the Official Secrets Act when Katharine Gun walked away free. The act has been called ‘draconian’ and unfair to those wishing to do what Katharine Gun did in responding to her conscience.
‘The sum of these concerns strongly suggests that … the Official Secrets Act, as it stands, is no longer fit for purpose either to guarantee the protection of confidences or guarantee the human rights of individuals charged under the act,’ said the Observer in its 13 January 2007 opinion. On a disappointing note, the article says that promises about re-examination of the act have not been kept.
Even before Katharine’s arrest, Liberty had called for reform of the act, in a well-worded bit of prescience: ‘The current secrecy laws are far too restrictive; they encourage abuse. Reforms need to ensure proper judicial scrutiny of any restriction on people’s freedom of expression or information.’ Protecting national security is important, Liberty said, but a balance was needed between that interest and the public’s right to freedom of information.
As times become more threatening, as terrorist activity continues to explode around the world, protecting national security must be a top priority. The NSA operation was conducted under the blanket of national security; in the end, it did nothing to protect but a great deal to provoke.
Perhaps it was only one of the abuses in its name, abuses paid for with individual and international rights.
As Liberty observed two years before taking on the pro bono case of the young Katharine Gun, ‘National security needs to be properly and tightly defined.’[5] On 31 January 2003, the NSA proved Liberty’s point.
NOTES
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FOREWORD
1. While the Iraq Inquiry Report was not positioned to judge the war’s legal status, it raised serious questions about its legality. Specifically, it concluded that the circumstances in which it was ultimately decided that there was a legal basis for UK participation were far from satisfactory. Executive Summary, 62–69.
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2. Brown, Gordon. My Life, Our Times (London: Random House UK, 2017).
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THE KOZA MEMO
1. Text is copied from the original document. Other sources may include changes to the original.
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CHAPTER 1
1. Michael Hayden, address to the National Press Club, Washington, DC, 23 January 2006.
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2. Michael Hayden, interview with Kwame Holman, 17 May 2006.
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3. James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret NSA (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 456.
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CHAPTER 2
1. Interview with the authors.
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2. Matthew Rycroft, memo to David Manning, UK Cabinet Office briefing paper, 23 July 2002.
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CHAPTER 3
1. Martin Bright, interview with the authors, London, June 2005.
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2. Martin Bright and Peter Beaumont, ‘Britain spied on UN allies over war vote’, Observer, 8 February 2004.
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3. UK Cabinet Office briefing paper, ‘Iraq: Conditions for Military Action’, 21 July 2002.
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4. Maggie Farley and Richard Bourdreaux, ‘Mexico’s Envoy to UN Leaves, with Defiance’, Los Angeles Times, 23 November 2003.
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5. Yvonne Ridley’s quoted statements throughout come from e-mail messages to the authors, February 2008.
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6. Bright interview.
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CHAPTER 4
1. In early 2003 the solicitor John Wadham was director of Liberty, the human rights organization that would represent Katharine Gun.
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CHAPTER 5
1. ‘Harris poll undermines media’s excuses for ignoring new evidence of Bush falsehoods in lead-up to Iraq War’, Media Matters for America, 26 July 2006, http://mediamatters.org/items/200607260005.
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2. Clare Short, An Honourable Deception (London: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 92.
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3. Jason Vest, ‘Saddam in the Crosshairs’, Village Voice, 20 November 2001, http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0147/vest.php.
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4. Clare Short, personal interview with the authors, Portcullis House, London, 9 June 2005.
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5. ‘Iraq: Conditions for Military Action’ (see Note 3, Chapter 3).
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6. Ibid.
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7. Michael Smith, ‘UK Foreign Office paper leak’, Irish Sunday Times, 19 June 2005.
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8. Justifying the pre-emptive strike against Iraq, apologists cite Clinton’s failure to deal decisively with Saddam.
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9. Rycroft, memo to Manning (see Note 2, Chapter 2).
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10. Ibid.
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11. Andrew Woodcock, ‘Scarlett “Asked Experts to Harden Weapons Hunt Report”,’ Scotsman, 4 August 2004.
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12. Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, ‘Tony and the Truth’, BBC Panorama documentary, recorded from transmission, 20 March 2005.
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13. ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government’, also known as ‘the September Dossier’, released 24 September 2002. A later dossier, ‘Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation’, irreverently called ‘the Dodgy Dossier’, was released 3 February 2003.
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14. Robin Cook, ‘Blair and Scarlett told me Iraq had no usable weapons’, Guardian (London), 12 July 2004.
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CHAPTER 6
1. Don Cox, ‘Reno Restaurateurs Pop Their Corks in Protest’, Reno Gazette Journal, 26 April 2006.
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2. ‘Mexican and Chilean diplomats claim Iraq peace efforts were scuppered by British and American intelligence spy operations’, Eye Spy Magazine (London), no. 24, 18 March 2004.
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3. Washington claimed that delay in finalizing the treaty was due to a complex translation process, not to Chile’s failure to support a second resolution. See ‘Lagos Humiliates Chile by Not Standing Tall over Its Iraq Vote’, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 16 May 2003; and Colum Lynch, ‘US Threatened Allies in Run-up to Invasion, Chilean Diplomat Says’, Washington Post, 23 March 2008.
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4. The argument as to who was the mastermind was never, to the authors’ knowledge, settled.
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5. ‘Annan, Rice Pay Tribute to Maverick Mexican Envoy’, Reuters, 6 June 2005.
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6. Herman Etchaleco, ‘Chile to Investigate Spying, Denounces US Intelligence Services’, Pravda, 4 March 2003.
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7. Specific complaints about the spy operation are not forthcoming from countries beholden to the United States.
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8. Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, ‘Purported Spy Memo May Add to US Troubles at UN’, Global Policy Forum, 4 March 2003.
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9. Ibid.
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10. ‘NZ spy base being used in US dirty tricks check says Locke’, New Zealand Herald, 4 March 2003.
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11. Secret memo to the prime minister from Lord Goldsmith, Section 23, 7 March
2003 (in reference to recording French conversations).
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12. ‘The real intelligence failure was Blair’s and Bush’s’, Sunday Herald (London), 11 July 2004.
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13. The thirteen-page opinion of 7 March 2003 listed six caveats, cautions that were wiped out in the brief go-ahead opinion given to Parliament on 17 March 2003.
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14. Wilmshurst, also an international law professor at University College London, testified before the Butler Committee on pre-war intelligence.
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15. Robin Cook, reported in the Guardian, 12 July 2004.
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16. Short, An Honourable Deception, 212 (see Note 2, Chapter 5).
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CHAPTER 8
1. The Harwoods’ statements are from interviews with the authors.
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2. Founded in 1934, Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, promotes the values of individual human dignity, equal treatment, and fairness as the foundations of a democratic society.
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CHAPTER 10
1. Donald Starr, quoted in the News Telegraph, 7 August 2005.
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2. Ibid.
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CHAPTER 11
1. Draft indictment, Bow Street Magistrates Court, The Queen v. Katharine Teresa Gun, n.d.
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2. Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘Woman’s lawyers fight to lift GCHQ gag’, Guardian, 20 January 2004.
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3. Molly Ivins, ‘Gun Battle’, syndicated column, 17 February 2004.
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CHAPTER 12
1. Katharine Gun, writing to the authors during this time of stress.
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CHAPTER 13
1. J. F. O. McAllister, ‘A smoking gun puts the war on trial’, Time Europe 163, no. 5, 2 February 2004.
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2. Ibid.
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3. Shayler’s case was complicated and included his argument that the absolute bar on disclosure breached Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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4. ‘A Smoking Gun’, News Review (London), 7 August 2005.
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5. Lord Denning: Southwark London Borough Council v. Williams (1971), 2 AER 175.
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6. David Shayler, ‘The case against GCHQ whistle blower exposes glaring flaws in Britain’s unwritten constitution’, Observer, 21 February 2004.
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7. Appointment of New DPP, Attorney General’s news release, London, 5 August 2003.
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8. Parliamentary Debates, Lords, 5th series, column 662, 3 March 2004.
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CHAPTER 14
1. Surprisingly, news coverage of this statement included the story ‘Britain Drops Charges in Leak of US Memo’, New York Times, 26 February 2004.
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2. R v. Katharine Gun, Advance Notice of Defence Statement, section 8.
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3. Ibid., section 8(b).
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4. Ibid., section 9(b).
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5. Ibid., section 11.
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6. Paxman was famed for pinning Tony Blair (and other dignitaries) to the wall during notoriously tough interviews.
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CHAPTER 15
1. Tony Blair, London press conference, 26 February 2004.
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2. Statement on R v. Katharine Gun, 26 February 2004, 108/04.
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3. Reference here is not to the original advice given to Blair on 7 March 2003, but the advice provided ten days later, which found the war legal.
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4. Short, 2005 interview with the authors (see Note 4, Chapter 5). (Short made it clear that there was abundant deceit and duplicity concerning the abandonment of the Gun case.)
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5. Transcript, daily press briefing by the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary General, 26 February 2004.
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6. Two years later Gen. Michael Hayden, Frank Koza’s then supervisor at NSA, would make the same claim while touring congressional offices in support of his nomination to head the CIA.
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7. ‘Blix had mobile phone tapped by allied spies’, Telegraph, 27 February 2004.
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8. Secret memo to the prime minister from Lord Goldsmith, Section 36, 7 March 2003.
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9. Robin Cook, reported in the Guardian, 12 July 2004.
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CHAPTER 17
1. Robin Cook, ‘Blair and Scarlett told me Iraq had no usable weapons’ (see Note 14, Chapter 5).
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2. Robert Lutz, personal interview with the authors, January 2008.
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3. Feature cover, Guardian, 26 February 2004.
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4. Peter Whitmer, personal interview with the authors, 22 February 2008.
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5. Tony Blair, the prime minister’s introduction to the September Dossier, ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (see Note 13, Chapter 5).
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CHAPTER 18
1. Katharine Gun, ‘The truth must out’, Observer, 19 September 2004, and reiterated with slight variation two years later to the authors.
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2. Daniel Ellsberg, ‘Time to Leak’, Tom Paine Common Sense, 20 March 2006. Also reiterated in a telephone conversation with M. Mitchell in 2005.
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3. ‘UK Involved in Espionage Against Iran’, Association of Former Intelligence Officers Newsletter, 14 December 2007.
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4. In August 2000 a jury found the EPA guilty of race, sex, and colour discrimination and of creating a hostile work environment against Coleman-Adebayo. Since then, she has become a leading spokesperson for whistle-blowing.
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5. Ben Davies, BBC News, 15 September 2004.
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6. In March 2007 the House passed H. 985, and in November the Senate would pass S. 274, providing critical whistle-blower reforms for US federal workers.
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7. Whistle-blower hero Sam Adams discovered in 1967 that there were more than twice the number of Vietnamese Communists under arms than the United States claimed.
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8. As a result of Grevil’s leak, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen ordered declassification of pre-war intelligence documents to a public now doubting the government’s credibility.
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9. Greg Gordon, Washington bureau correspondent, Star Tribune, 9 September 2004.
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10. Daniel Ellsberg, ‘About the Truth-Telling Project’, www.ellsberg.net/truthtellingproject.
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11. Ray McGovern, ‘Mary McCarthy’s Choice’, Tom Paine Common Sense, 24 April 2006.
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EPILOGUE
1. Association of Former Intelligence Officers Newsletter, 14 January 2006; from the World Tribune, 8 January 2008. Originally quoted from Beijing Qingnian Cankao (Elite Reference).
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2. Pasquill was arrest
ed two years earlier and charged in September 2007 with six counts of violation of the OSA.
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3. Reported by the Associated Press, 19 December 2007.
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4. ‘Women of the Year,’ Guardian, 12 December 2004.
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5. Liberty, press release, London, 10 September 2001.
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INDEX
The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.
Abrams, Elliott, 55
Afghanistan, US/UK invasion, 29–30
Aguilar Zinser, Adolfo, 29, 34, 62, 70–1, 73
Akram, Munir, 74
Alvear, Soledad, 71
Anderson, Donald, 174
Angola, 7, 16, 51, 75, 84
Annan, Kofi, 74, 160, 161, 162, 187
Arias, Inocencio, 72
Armitage, Richard L., 55
Baker, James, 73
Beaumont, Peter, 32, 34, 41
Biden, Joe, 84–5
Birmingham, University of, 103–04, 124
Blair, Tony: accusations of intelligence misuse, 99, 102, 136, 195; and bugging of Kofi Annan, 162–3; Robin Cook on conduct of, 77, 178, 189; and democratic principles, 129; deploys naval task force to Gulf, 64; Gun case shakes government of, 87, 136–7, 140–1, 153–4, 155–6, 165–7, 176–85; legal advice given to see Goldsmith, Lord (Attorney General); meeting with Bush at Crawford, 28, 57–8, 60, 190; motivations of, 179, 185–6, 190; Oval Office meeting, 12–3, 64–6; public rhetoric of, 17, 18, 27–8, 57; secret road map to war, 2, 17, 28, 34, 51–5, 57–61, 63–7; Clare Short’s criticisms of, 79; Rowan Williams on, 75; worries over Bush regime’s aggression, 56–7, 185