The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War

Copyright

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019

Copyright © Marcia and Thomas Mitchell 2008; 2019

Cover design by Jack Smyth

Cover image © Alexandru Zdrobau/Unsplash

Marcia and Thomas Mitchell assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008348564

Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008348571

Version: 2019-07-30

Dedication

For daughter Kristin and sons Alan and Jay, and for their

loved ones – which makes them ours as well

And for Paul and Jan Harwood,

Katharine’s remarkable parents

Epigraph

It was a decision of conscience in a world where nobody celebrates that. She will go down in history as a hero of the human spirit.

– SEAN PENN

We are going to be in a very dangerous situation as a country if people feel they can simply spill out secrets or details of security operations, whether false or true actually, and get away with it.

– TONY BLAIR

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

EPIGRAPH

FOREWORD

THE KOZA MEMO

PART I: INVITATION TO A CONSPIRACY

CHAPTER ONE: MESSAGE SENT

CHAPTER TWO: MESSAGE RECEIVED

CHAPTER THREE: FOUR WEEKS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

CHAPTER FOUR: CONSCIENCE MEETS INSPECTOR TINTIN

PART II: FALLOUT

CHAPTER FIVE: DETOUR ON THE SECRET ROAD TO WAR

CHAPTER SIX: OUTRAGE

CHAPTER SEVEN: SILENCE IN WASHINGTON

CHAPTER EIGHT: TAIWAN CALLING

PART III: THE WOMAN

CHAPTER NINE: EIGHT MONTHS IN LIMBO

CHAPTER TEN: THE THIRD-CULTURE KID

PART IV: THE LEGAL CASE

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE BLONDE WHO DROPPED THE BOMBSHELL

CHAPTER TWELVE: DEPORTATION REVISITED

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE PROSECUTION AND THE DEFENCE PREPARE FOR COURT

PART V: AFTERMATH

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: A HISTORIC COLLAPSE AT THE OLD BAILEY

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: REACTION, REBELLION, AND A CRUSHING NEW REVELATION

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: AN UNCOMMON DAY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: MOTIVATIONS, MISDEEDS, AND TRAGIC MISTAKES

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: WHISTLE-BLOWING: CONSCIENCE AND CONFRONTATION

CHAPTER NINETEEN: A LIFE INTERRUPTED

EPILOGUE

NOTES

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

FOREWORD TO THIS EDITION

The consequences of the invasion and of the conflict within Iraq which followed are still being felt in Iraq and the wider Middle East, as well as in the UK. It left families bereaved and many individuals wounded, mentally as well as physically.

– ‘The Chilcot report’ Executive Summary, 2016

Chilcot has shone a light on what happened, but it is clear there are still bits of the puzzle that are missing. Now that we know better, will we do better?

– Katharine Gun, Guardian, 8 July 2016

Gun will not go quietly. Her trial … will rehash the war’s legality.

– Time Magazine Europe, 2 February 2004

ON 6 JULY 2016 – thirteen years after Katharine Gun was arrested for violating the Official Secrets Act, eight years after this book was first published, and seven years after the official UK Iraq Inquiry was launched – a comprehensive government report made worldwide headlines. In twelve volumes totalling 2.6 million words, the inquiry report concluded that the Iraq War was unnecessary, was based on questionable intelligence, and resulted in a chaotic, painful aftermath – all of which were avoidable.

Relevant to this story, Sir John Chilcot’s investigating committee concluded that the legality of military action taken by then-US President George Bush and then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was questionable and never satisfactorily determined. From January to March 2003, a series of conflicting advisories and decisions revealed shady machinations fuelling Bush’s passionate pursuit of the grand prize: a sanctioned war and the removal of Saddam Hussein.

While two heads of state, two of the most powerful men on the planet, secretly plotted the invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam, a young British woman was among those who suspected that the two were set on war – an unnecessary, possibly illegal, war – despite repeated claims to the contrary. Katharine Gun enthusiastically marched against the invasion, along with thousands of others. But for her, marching was not enough.

It’s been said that Katharine Gun remains a moral compass for the United Kingdom – someone who was willing to put her own interests behind those of her country and of the world. Fearful that the United Kingdom would launch an illegal war, the British secret service officer risked her freedom and her future in an effort to derail that war and to save lives certain to be lost. She did so by blowing the whistle on a United States spy operation against the UN Security Council (UNSC), an operation designed to ensure that it voted for war. Some called the operation blackmail; others, US ‘dirty tricks’. By whatever name, it was unlawful.

At the time, the UNSC was considering a highly controversial resolution to legitimize war against Iraq. Truth, made public by Katharine’s whistle, ended the US National Security Agency spy operation and hopes for legalizing the war.

Where the Crown Prosecution Service’s most distinguished practitioners wanted to make the criminal case against Katharine about sharing secrets, Katharine wanted it to be about the secrets themselves. She wanted the public to understand what our governments were doing, and who would suffer as a result. She was deeply concerned about the multitude of deaths that would result from an unnecessary war. Her defence, that she believed the Iraq War was illegal, would – years later – be supported by excerpts from the Chilcot report.[1]

But five years would pass before the inquiry would be initiated.

When it was complete, the historic, voluminous document substantiated what Katharine and many others had believed all along – that after the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy, George Bush determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein and then dragged a reluctant Blair along with him. Of special interest was the release of declassified correspondence between Downing Street and the White House. The cosy exchange of thirty-one letters concerning a proposed invasion of Iraq revealed the truth of the matter. Writing in July of 2002, eight months prior to the invasion – Blair told Bush that, ‘I will be with you, whatever.’ A mountain of criticism has been heaped upon the former prime minister for fulfilling his risky promise. He is still widely accused of having followed the wrong man into a wrong war.

In fairness, Blair had earlier supported containment as the way to handle threats from Iraq, and he was concerned about what would happen if military action were precipitously undertaken. The report concluded that he was innocent of inventing or distorting evidence to support the war – but that he had indeed weakened and acquiesced to Bush, and that he was responsible for ill-fated decision-making and its ultimate result. In a heated and nearly tearful response, Blair defended his honour, insisting that he had not been a US pawn, that he ‘did not mislead [his] country.’

Regardless, it is impossible for this author to reconcile the report’s findings with Blair’s overarching denial: ‘What I cannot do and will not do is say we took the wrong decision.’ The world believes otherwise.

Strangely silent in the debate – both during Katharine’s case and after the monumental report was released – was the United States. In July of 2016, that country was distracted by the nastiest, most vicious election campaign in its history. The annoying ‘Iraq issue’ neatly folded into the campaign only as a political weapon: Which candidate had supported the 2003 invasion, and which had not? Still, many American lawmakers regret having supported the invasion.

In The Restless Wave, published shortly before his 2018 death, US Senator John McCain wrote that the Iraq War ‘can’t be judged as anything other than a mistake’. One of the most hawkish Senate Republicans, he had been firmly in favour of the invasion. Later, he took full responsibility for ‘my share of the blame for it’. Hillary Clinton, a Democratic senator from 2001–2009, apologized during the 2016 presidential campaign for her previous aye vote in Congress, for having been deceived by the surround-sound of political rhetoric deafening Capitol Hill.

What is easy to miss in the continuing flurry of political hindsight is what Katharine Gun actually accomplished. No, she was not able to stop the war. However, she revealed a crime, a plot to start and legitimize a war. There is no question that had the UN Security Council adopted a proposed resolution to legalize the war, the Iraq narrative would have been different. The invading coalition would have had legal justification for its action. While criticism certainly would have followed military action, it would have been considered and voiced differently – seen as a coalition of countries, authorized by the Council and acting legally and legitimately. Without Katharine’s act of conscience, the invaders would have achieved what they so sorely sought: approval for a horrific, wrongful act.

There exists a compelling and excruciatingly obvious lesson in a time when the ‘Iran issue’ and Middle East destabilization are of such concern: The Iraq Inquiry Report should be required study for every US and UK lawmaker. Further, it should be first on the international reading list of anyone involved in decision-making affecting Iran and the Middle East. An addition to the study curriculum could well be the writings of Gordon Brown, Blair’s successor and Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time Bush and Blair were planning their invasion.

‘War could not be justified as a last resort and invasion cannot now be seen as a proportionate response,’ Brown writes in 2017.[2]

On numerous occasions, both publicly and privately, Katharine has insisted that she still has no regrets about violating the Official Secrets Act in an effort to stop the war and save lives. ‘I would do it again,’ she says, words once bannered across newspapers around the world (except in the United States) and accompanied by the photo of a triumphant, smiling young woman. She said it again when she and her infant daughter travelled to Washington DC, where an American University symposium featured Katharine’s story and the first edition of this book.

By then, Katharine was in her early thirties and five years had passed since her arrest. She was happily married to Yasar Gun, a Turkish national, and had fallen back on teaching Chinese to British students. Her parents were close by, and they remained proud, dedicated advocates, championing their daughter throughout her ordeal and beyond. Katharine’s life was before her, but that single decision – as right as it was for her – would play a major role in her family’s future. Most difficult would be finding satisfying long-term employment. It’s just not easy when you’ve been the star of a story like this.

After a while, she and Yasar took trips to his beloved Turkey to explore the possibilities of moving permanently. Making a decision to settle abroad would be difficult for Katharine, despite the challenges she faced in her home country. But finally, in the spring of 2011, Katharine wrote, ‘We finally decided to take the plunge.’ Since relocating to Turkey, the family has visited England several times, and in 2016, the death of Katharine’s beloved mother, Jan Harwood, took Katharine back for a stay with her grieving father.

In her most recent letter, Katharine writes: ‘We moved to a village and live on a farmyard. Our daughter has loved living here; she helps to look after the chickens, goats, sheep, and cows. She wanders off into the fields on her own. There are acres of wheat fields behind the house. She sits and sings songs to herself or writes poetry or draws, she jumps in the haystacks and takes photos of everything, sometimes making videos and introducing the animals. It’s a very simple life, and our home has been very basic.’

This author has lived in the countryside of South Dakota for years, and surely can appreciate the attraction of a simple life, the joys of solitude, and the freedom of children playing in nature. However, one also wonders: what have we all lost, with Katharine Gun removed from the dialogue of conscience? Her sharp mind and strong will are exactly what today’s political and governmental discussions sorely need. One should never say that because Katharine is intelligent, strong, and experienced that she should leap back into the fray – but wouldn’t we all be better for it?

Reflecting on her act of conscience and its impact, Katharine’s letter concludes, ‘I hope my example will give others courage to stand firm against abuse of power and deception.’ As for the war?

‘In truth, it was a war crime, an illegal war, a war against humanity.’

– Marcia Mitchell, 20 February 2019

THE KOZA MEMO

To: [Recipients withheld]

From: FRANK KOZA, Def Chief of Staff (Regional Targets)

CIV/NSA Sent on Jan 31 2003 0:16

Subject: Reflections of Iraq Debate/Votes at UN-RT Actions + Potential for Related Contributions

Importance: HIGH

Top Secret//COMINT//X1

All,

As you’ve likely heard by now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how [to] membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/dependencies, etc – the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises. In RT, that means a QRC surge effort to revive/create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters.

We’ve also asked ALL RT topi’s to emphasize and make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes. We have a lot of special UN-related diplomatic coverage (various UN delegations) from countries not sitting on the UNSC right now that could contribute related perspectives/insights/whatever. We recognize that we can’t afford to ignore this possible source.

We’d appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar, more in-direct access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines. I suspect that you’ll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels – especially as this effort will probably peak (at least for this specific focus) in the middle of next week, following the SecState’s presentation to the UNSC.

Thanks for your help.[1]

CHAPTER 1: Message Sent

To: [Recipients withheld]

From: FRANK KOZA, Def Chief of Staff (Regional Targets)

CIV/NSA Sent on Jan 31 2003 0:16

Subject: Reflections of Iraq Debate/Votes at UN-RT Actions + Potential for Related Contributions

Importance: HIGH

Top Secret//COMINT//X1

All,

As you’ve likely heard by now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how [to] membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq …

IT BEGAN IN the wee hours of the morning at the National Security Agency’s National Security Operations Center not all that far from Washington, DC, where Frank Koza, chief of the Regional Targets group, sat composing a highly secret message. Aside from the usual Intelspeak, his message was straightforward and to the point. It was addressed to his counterparts at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, England.

Koza’s e-mail was very much in keeping with the business of the NSA, an enterprise little understood by most of the American public, who are much more familiar with the CIA and the FBI, often in the news for questionable management and various commissions and omissions and, less often, for jobs well done. It is the NSA that seems the most obscure, most mysterious of the intelligence agencies.

By design, the NSA remains in the shadows, hidden behind a wall of security in Maryland. Its work is beyond top secret, beyond imagination. A city unto itself, it excludes the outside world and likely could survive comfortably if the rest of civilization vanished in the blink of an eye. It is unbuggable and impenetrable. It stores more secret information than all other hush-hush data collectors combined. Its technical capabilities are mind-boggling and imply that private international communication, by whatever means, is not private at all.

Koza’s addressee is similarly not as well known worldwide as its more glamorous sister agencies, MI5 and MI6, popularized by British fiction. GCHQ is infinitely more secret, with far greater resources than its intelligence siblings. To those knowledgeable about intelligence matters, GCHQ has an impressive significance by virtue of inheritance. Its predecessor was the historic Government Codes and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, where the British broke the infamous German Enigma code during World War II. Now, five thousand staff on the GCHQ payroll speak and listen in 107 different languages every hour of every day. This morning, thousands of miles from Koza’s desk, one of them, Katharine Gun, would be reading in English.

Coincidentally, this same day, 31 January 2003, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, announced the selection of GCHQ veteran David Pepper to replace Sir Francis Richards as director of the agency. Pepper, with an impressive intelligence background, would assume his new position in April, just in time to inherit the Koza problem.

Also on this same day, then US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would attend a highly secret and decidedly bizarre meeting in the Oval Office with George W. Bush and Tony Blair, where the topic of conversation would have much to do with what was now taking place at the NSA.

More than o ne reliable source concludes that the message from Koza was Rice’s inspiration. However, a former NSA officer puts his money on Vice President Dick Cheney, for whom desired ends and means for getting there are sometimes considered to be in conflict with the law. The view of unnamed US intelligence officers suggests a team inspiration from Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, along with George Tenet, then CIA chief, and USAF Gen. Michael Hayden, then NSA chief.

Seen as directly complicit in the 31 January fiasco, Hayden has been alleged in the past to be somewhat careless about complying with various laws governing surveillance of individuals. It is true that the four-star general has fiercely disputed such allegations. He has described the NSA’s lawyers as being careful about ensuring the lawfulness of the agency’s actions ‘out of a heartfelt, principled view that NSA operations had to be consistent with bedrock legal protections’.[1] And, later, that ‘Everything that the agency has done has been lawful.’[2]

That seems not to have been the case on 31 January 2003.

Hayden, who has spoken so definitively in defending the NSA’s compliance with the law, has spoken with equal conviction about other aspects of the secrecy business. One statement in particular, uniquely related to this story, seems especially disconcerting: ‘I’m not too uncomfortable with a society that makes its bogeymen secrecy and power … making secrecy and power the bogeymen of political culture, that’s not a bad society.’[3]

In the end, Frank Koza’s message sent from the agency headed by Hayden was all about secrecy and power, about using illegal means to gain power over a small group of suddenly important individuals and nations.

This very day a bogeyman, a monstrous American bogeyman, was about to saunter into Katharine Gun’s office and fire up her computer screen. The question was, what to do with him?

CHAPTER 2: Message Received

At the time, it seemed to me that if people knew how desperate Bush and Blair were to have a legitimate reason to go to war, our eyes would be opened … people would see that their intention was not to disarm Saddam, but in fact to go to war.

– Katharine Gun, April 2005

‘IT WAS QUITE cold that Friday morning of 31 January when I woke up about nine o’clock beside Yasar, still sleeping. At GCHQ we had flexible hours, and my workday usually began at about ten o’clock and ended after six, so sleeping until nine was not unusual. Our bedroom was light and bright with natural wood floors and white walls, with cream-coloured curtains. It was a cheerful place to begin the day, even on a cold winter morning – not like the rest of the house, a dreary place with small windows. I got up, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and layered on a jumper, because I might want to walk home after work and it would be cold. I always dressed casually for work; most people at GCHQ did.[1]

‘Yasar drove me to work in our old, beat-up red Rover Metro. We had a cuddle and kiss before he dropped me off outside the gates of GCHQ. I waved goodbye and he drove off to work at the café. Inside, I bought a coffee and a cinnamon roll at the shop and settled down to work. It was all so normal, so ordinary. There was nothing to suggest that this day would change my life.

‘I went to my desk, finished the last of my coffee, and opened my e-mail. And there it was.

‘I could not believe what was on the screen, and I had to read it several times. I felt quite excited – no, more shocked than anything else. And it suddenly became clear to me that this message was so significant that perhaps it could be used to bring a stop to the rush for military action against Iraq. My thoughts were racing, really bizarre thoughts for me. I had never intended to do anything like that which I was now contemplating. I certainly had not been looking around for information to leak. The thought honestly had never occurred to me. But now, the fact that I was a recipient of Koza’s request made me feel as if I had moved into a different sphere, as if my life had suddenly taken on new and unfamiliar dimensions. I was, in this new place, privy to the internal workings, the most secret workings of top government – workings that seemed so very wrong.’