The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War. Thomas Mitchell M.
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?
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.’
On Katharine’s screen was a blatant invitation to a conspiracy. The United States was mounting an illegal intelligence operation against the UN Security Council member nations – and their representatives – that would cast the deciding vote on a resolution for war against Iraq. At the moment, the undecided were resisting US pressure for an ‘aye’ on launching a pre-emptive strike.
The purpose of the operation was explained – to collect ‘the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals’. Clearly, the principal goal was war. Sooner rather than later. Called for was listening in on not only office communications, but also ‘domestic’, private conversations.
Britain was asked to join ‘a surge effort … against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea’, with special attention on Pakistan. Other UN delegations not sitting on the Security Council at the moment were also good targets because they could ‘contribute related perspectives insights whatever.’ The message, sent by the NSA’s Frank Koza, recognized that ‘we can’t afford to ignore this possible source’.
As for timing, Koza wrote, ‘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’. It was important to know how the ‘swing voters’ reacted to Colin Powell’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) pitch to the Security Council and, it seems, to collect secrets that could manipulate those reactions, ensuring that they would be ‘favorable to US goals’.
‘I sat there, mesmerized, appalled by the fact that the public rhetoric of George Bush and Tony Blair, especially Tony Blair at that time, led us to believe that all efforts were being directed toward securing a diplomatic resolution to the matter of Iraq, not toward an inevitable war. They talked of other options: Saddam Hussein being forced to give up his WMD, or having to leave Iraq. It seemed so hypocritical that they were saying this on the one hand in public, and behind everyone’s back, they were desperately trying to seek a yes-vote to the second resolution to justify a war that they obviously wanted. They were willing to use any means to get what they wanted.
‘It seemed to me, as I sat there thinking, that if people knew what really was going on, they would understand that the intent all along was war, not disarmament. I asked myself: How could anybody even hope for a chance of resolving the issue peacefully when the motives of the US administration were so apparent, so blatant? Besides, I didn’t think that the job of the intelligence services was to manipulate, to politicize intelligence. I don’t believe you should tailor intelligence to a political agenda. I was angry – angry about their trying to manipulate the vote in the Security Council.
‘I knew there were others like me at GCHQ who were worried about this rush to war, who had serious questions in mind.’
By a strange coincidence, a memorandum had been circulated to staff exactly one week earlier. It read, ‘I know from the questions you have asked … that some of you have concerns about the legal or ethical basis of war against Iraq – if and when it happens – and GCHQ’s part in it.’ ‘Well,’ assured the senior officer responsible for the memorandum, ‘there is no question of any member of GCHQ being asked to do anything – at this or any other time – which is not lawful.’
It is likely that the author of the memorandum to staff believed what he wrote so convincingly. Further, he assured, ‘British troops do not go into action unless the Attorney General has advised the Prime Minister that their action is lawful.’ The directive also quoted the prime minister’s remarks from two weeks earlier, when he promised he would never commit British troops to a war he thought was ‘wrong or unnecessary’. Besides, the government ‘has shown its commitment to trying to resolve this difficult situation by agreement with the international community, through