French website interviews the spy who tried to prevent the invasion of Iraq

A French website interviewed the spy Catherine Gan, who tried in March 2003 to prevent the invasion of Iraq, and asked: Is she a traitor or a heroine?

A question was asked about her story before it was asked about the stories of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, when she made the decision - when she was not yet thirty - that would turn her life upside down, but she failed to turn the tide of the world as she had hoped.

And the French LCI website published an interview with the reporter Martin Bright, who was the first to publish the story, and with the former employee of the British Electronic Intelligence Service, Catherine Gann, who decided to send to the press a top-secret note from the US National Security Agency, asking the United States from the United Kingdom Assisting in gathering information on some members of the UN Security Council to force them to vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq.

The message of the former translator in the British intelligence service reached the hands of journalist Martin Bright, who published the exclusive information in the "Observer" newspaper, but without this information having the desired effect, because the war in Iraq began a few days later, with what we know of the consequences.

Unusual Law

Following this letter, Kathryn Gunn was indicted under the Official Secrets Act, before charges were dropped the following year.

The cinema produced a moving and well-documented film, in which Keira Knightley played the role of the whistleblower who issued the warning.

Gan said that what she did is what she thought she should do, and that she had a strong argument to prove it, noting that she had lived a harsh experience, because those who fall under the "Official Secrets Act" have no possible defense and no legal means to defend themselves, "It's a terrible situation."

The spy found it difficult to convince an organization like the National Security Agency of the consequences of reporting wrongdoing for her government, although it would be beneficial for her to do so because it would give a positive impression of her role.

Gann noted that the "Official Secrets Act" from which the film took its title and was subject to, was an unusual law that was applied at the beginning of the twentieth century to control Irish terrorism, because it is unusual in British law that there is no defense of the public interest.

Official secrets and

under this law you cannot say "I did it because it was the right thing to do", nor can you say "I did it because the public had a right to know", because violating this "Official Secrets" law is a crime in itself. .

What Gan did was to dump and leak a document to the intelligence service, and she admitted that, and this is a crime, and there is no defense that can be presented to her, according to the Official Secrets Law, and even after dropping the lawsuits against her, nothing has changed and the law remains the same, according to the site.

Kathryn Gunn said the attorney general decided he could not pursue her case "because I would have sought a state of necessity (permission to take unlawful action to avoid a greater threat, the war in Iraq) which had not previously been sought in such cases, but could have been to speak if the judge authorizes it.

Typo

When asked why he

did not reputation for

her story as it

spread the

stories of

Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, Gan said that the

reason may be a

typographical error made by one of the

Observer staff to

replace zai character in the

American word character Seine to match the

spelling British, which made the

US Code Dradz Rport questioned the The memo is true, although all the American media have contacted Martin Bright.

Martin Bright saw that the way journalists work had changed, as the WikiLeaks cases and the Panama Papers showed that there is another way to work, in which British, American and European journalists cooperate on major topics, expressing his regret that they did not think about it, as “Maybe if we published information at the same time in The New York Times, Liberation and Le Monde, the situation would have been completely different."

When the film asks to whom the employee's loyalty is if his country is dishonest with its citizens, Gunn said she had not thought about it, and that her concern was a matter of an impending war to come, and just ending this terrible chain of events.

She explained that the memo appeared to be "highly explosive" because it showed the illegal manipulation of diplomatic tactics at the United Nations, and how the UK and US intelligence services planned to blackmail diplomats.

Deception and obstruction

"What caught my attention was that they couldn't get what they wanted in a legitimate way, so they tried to do it in this deceptive and illegal way. I tried to stop them and block this work," Gan adds.

When asked whether they participated in the film that tells the story, Martin Bright said that they were already involved in a different way from the beginning, after director Gavin Hood assured them that the script and work of the film would be as similar as possible to reality, and therefore "what will appear on the screen is very close to what happened." Gan was a consultant during the filming of behind the scenes of the intelligence service, and I was a consultant to film what I spoke in the newspaper."

Speaking to the site, Bright said that this film is above all entertainment, not a documentary, and it is important because it reminds of an almost forgotten story in the United Kingdom, and it talks about the concept of integrity, where a young woman is determined not to give up despite all the pressures that try to prevent her from Tell the truth.

Noting that the US President is lying today as the British Prime Minister lied yesterday as if nothing had changed, Gan said that if people realized that these things started in 2003, they would be able to understand the problems better today.