More whistleblowers required

Last week I was fascinated to hear an interview on CBC Radio with former British secret service officer Katharine Gun about her brave decision to expose a covert plot to influence the United Nations to authorize the Iraq invasion in 2003. The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War, by Marcia and Thomas Mitchell, is a new book based on Gun's experience as a translator who blew the whistle on a low down campaign to fix the UN vote on Iraq.

Gun sounded to me like she was extraordinarily brave given the weight of state authority. Yet even when this young woman decided to leak secret evidence, the news media were reluctant to seize the information. Finally Martin Bright, a London Observer editor, risked prison to publish her classified e-mail evidence of US/United Kingdom complicity.

The message was from U.S. spies asking their British counterparts to tap the telephones of UN Security Council members. The message reportedly said the US monitoring body, the National Security Agency, had begun a 'surge' in eavesdropping on countries about to vote on action in Iraq. The Observer ran an article claiming Government Communications Headquarters had been asked to help spy on the six countries key to the passing of a second UN resolution on Iraq. The plan clearly violated the Vienna Conventions.

Gun maintained she had “only ever followed her conscience” to try to prevent an “illegal war against Iraq.”

Disclosures justified

Gun added, “any disclosures that may have

been made were justified... because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US government who attempted to subvert our own

security services; and to prevent wide-scale death and casualties among ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war.”

First fired from her job, Gun was then arrested for breaching the Official Secrets Act -- a charge that could have sent her to prison for two years. The incident set off a fracas in Europe, but hardly caused a flicker of interest on this side of the Atlantic.

A year later, when the case was due in court, actor Sean Penn and civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson were among those who lined up to support Gun's decision. Five members of the US Congress also released an open letter to British PM Tony Blair backing her action. Their statement read: "The British and American people deserved to know all the elements involved in the build-up to war. Whistleblowers play an essential role in a democracy."

Gun, who grew up in Taiwan and is a fluent Mandarin speaker, entered a not guilty plea and in a surprise move 30 minutes later the prosecution said that no

evidence would be offered against her. A full trial might have exposed more top secret documents to public scrutiny as the defense were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (ie. an illegal war of aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act.

Baffled

On her day in court, Gun said, “I’m just baffled that in the 21st century we as human beings are still dropping bombs on each other as a means to resolve issues.” The whistleblower was represented in court by a civil rights group called Liberty. Spokesman Barry Hugill said her case "was a clear act of conscience. She didn't endanger anyone's life and she didn't put national security at risk.”

Today Gun says her leak was followed by others and the truth about Iraq has emerged - that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that regime change was always the intention and that there was no al-Qaeda link. The bravery of other officials and public servants, she added, has since made us aware of torture, secret prisons and beatings.

“Truth-telling and whistleblowing were crucial in allowing us to piece together the facts about the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. But it came too late to save lives in that war.” When asked how she chose between the public interest and the national interest before making her leak, Gun says she believed there was no choice, because in essence, the two are the same.

Gun is out doing a media blitz around the new book about her experience. Author Thomas Mitchell is a former FBI special agent and his wife is a former journalist and senior executive for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is certainly fascinating to think that if Gun's leak had been widely reported a war of dire consequences might not be going on.