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In the weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, Katharine Gun exposed a US plot to spy on the UN in leaks published in the Observer. She joins former Observer journalist Martin Bright to tell their story ahead of a forthcoming Hollywood adaptation. Plus the BBC’s Carrie Gracie on how she fought for equal pay
In the weeks before the invasion, Tony Blair and George W Bush continued to make the case for war in Iraq despite the lack of evidence that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. In Cheltenham, a young Mandarin-language specialist at the UK spy agency GCHQ, Katharine Gun, was at her desk when she received an email detailing a secret plan by the US government to spy on the United Nations to try to secure a resolution from the security council to authorise an attack.
In an attempt to prevent a war she believed to be deeply wrong, she leaked the memo and it landed on the desk of the then Observer journalist Martin Bright, who broke the sensational story. The leak was picked up around the world but a mishap by a young Observer newsdesk assistant, Nicole Mowbray, almost killed the story. Continue reading...