The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War

by Marcia Mitchell

  Publicly, the spin had not been on regime change, but solely on the WMD threat to Iraq’s neighbours and to Western interests. Blair was concerned about regime change. There was no certainty that removal of Saddam’s regime would necessarily lead to elimination of Iraq’s WMD. The British view was that even if getting rid of the Iraqi leader was ‘a necessary condition for controlling Iraqi WMD, it is certainly not a sufficient one’.[6]

  At Crawford, a nervous Blair had his conditions for UK participation in a war against Iraq: efforts must be made to construct a coalition and to shape public opinion; the Israel–Palestine crisis must be quiescent; and options to eliminate WMD through weapons inspections must be exhausted. He remembered Palestine, as he had promised Short and other members of his cabinet. But at some point along the road to Baghdad, Blair would abandon his conditions.

  Spinning half-truths and deceptions would become a part of a major effort to shape public opinion by both Bush and Blair. And not only were their efforts directed to an unsuspecting public – the United States Congress and the British Parliament were blindsided as well.

  By this time, the president and his White House advisers – Colin Powell and his team versus Donald Rumsfeld and his – were vigorously and often contentiously debating the How and Why of an Iraqi strike. For Powell, however, the Why was most troubling. It is ironic that it would be his task, a year later, to sell the world a defective Why. A 28 April 2002 New York Times story got the When and the How pretty much right. Early in 2003, it said, the United States would launch a full-scale air and ground campaign. At the time of publication, denials came from both military and civilian leaders. There was no timetable, no plan for war. Of course, behind the scenes, Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks at the Department of Defense were deep into formulating war plans, Powell and company were working on a plan for post-war Iraq at State, and the White House was busily debating how to sell the whole business to a reluctant world.

  In May 2002 the United States and Great Britain were secretly and illegally bombing Iraqi targets, engaging in war without a declaration of war. The goal was to weaken Saddam’s defences and to provoke a response, thus providing a reason for a full-scale attack. Two months earlier, British foreign officers had advised the Blair government that such raids were illegal. Routine air surveillance and attacks were justified in defending Kurds and Shias; anything more was ‘not consistent with UN law’.[7]

  Undaunted, the United States and United Kingdom began serious bombing of Iraqi targets, with the British planes dropping as much tonnage as their airborne colleagues. Taunted, an uncooperative Saddam refrained from responding. The attacks continued in the guise of allowable routine operations.

  In truth, the air strikes were nothing new. They had been going on for years, even before the Bush presidency, part of Clinton’s effort to depose Saddam without going to war.[8] But now, it seems there was a new impetus, a compelling need to elicit an actionable response.

  Clearly, the policy was changing.

  On 2 June 2002, a West Point audience of young men and women training for the business of war sat quietly listening to the words of their commander in chief, George W. Bush. He was candid, focused. He spoke to his mesmerized audience about the doctrine of pre-emption.

  ‘Our security will require all Americans [to] be ready for pre-emptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and defend our lives.’ The United States must strike first against another nation to prevent a potential threat from becoming an actual one, the president explained.

  If the president’s words fell on receptive ears at West Point, they were not so well received in certain other circles. There was the question of evaluating the level of threat involved, of deciding what was ‘potential’ and what was ‘actual’. Further, the United States had long held the position that it would not strike first. Pre-emption was not only a new ethical and political construct, but also a difficult one for most Americans. Wasn’t the country’s traditional stand, that of striking only in retaliation or in response to imminent attack, one of the national characteristics that made the United States different? But it was not just Americans who asked questions about what appeared to be a drastic change in policy.

  On 3 August, John Bolton, then Undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, ‘Our policy … insists on regime change in Baghdad.’ The following day the Observer said of Bolton, ‘His words sent alarm bells ringing in London.’

  Of critical UK concern was the need to establish a legal justification for war. The Americans might be careless about this sort of thing, but the British were not. There were specific and hardbound conditions for legal UK support of military action. Specifically stated in the 21 July Cabinet Office briefing paper were only three reasons considered lawful for UK participation in pre-emptive military action against Iraq: ‘In the right of individual or collective self-defence, if carried out to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, or if authorised by the UN Security Council.’ It should be noted that Tony Blair had already agreed to go to war for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from power, regardless of what was reported on 21 July.

  On 23 July, two days after closely guarded distribution of the Cabinet Office briefing paper outlining conditions for military action – which just happened to be newly-wed Katharine Gun’s twenty-eighth birthday – a top-secret prime minister’s meeting took place. Present, among others, were Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, GCHQ head Sir Francis Richards, and ‘C’, MI6 head Sir John Dearlove.

  Carefully recorded meeting minutes (‘the Downing Street memo’) would later be leaked, despite a caution: ‘This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made.’

  Discussed were two broad US military options: a ‘generated start’ or a ‘running start’ utilizing only sixty days compared with the ninety required in the slower, generated build-up of forces. Ideally, this second option would be ‘initiated by an Iraqi casus belli’, a provoked justification, or more aptly, an excuse, for military retribution. The British were finding this second option a problem. Engineering a justification could prove to be risky. Most interesting is that Attorney General Goldsmith warned the group, ‘The desire for regime change was not a legal basis for military action.’[9]

  It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran.

  Dearlove reported conversations with Washington about Iraq. Bush, he correctly understood, had as his principal goal the removal of Saddam Hussein, which he intended to ‘justify by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD’. But, Dearlove realized, ‘the facts are being fixed to fit the policy’.[10]

  As the British mulled over US plans and their own limitations and capabilities for going to war against Iraq, the bottom line seemed to be a question of whether the benefits of military action would outweigh the obvious risks. Timing was a key concern, not just the time needed to marshal UK resources for armed conflict, but also that necessary for ‘shaping public opinion’. The British population was strongly against military action. Even more troubling was just how to go about getting Parliament to support a war it did not want.

  On 29 August 2002, MI6 received what would come to be known as the ‘45-minute threat’, a report that came ‘third hand through a main well-established source via a second link in the reporting chain and originally an Iraqi military source’. In itself, the origin of the information should have been enough to cause serious doubts about its authenticity. But it did not.

  Discussion and debate led to serious concern among senior intelligence officers. One officer e-mailed the Joint Intelligence Committee assessment team saying the claim was ‘rather strong since it is based on a single source’. Could a final JIC draft read that intelligence ‘suggests’ rather than ‘shows’ the existence of these weapons? O
thers in the intelligence community were becoming nervous. The source may or may not have been reliable. But Tony Blair wanted to go with the strongest possible wording. Here was a threat the public – and Parliament – could understand. And it was one that could be shared with Bush.

  A year later, reliable source allegations surfaced that during this time JIC head John Scarlett had urged a ‘hardening’ of Iraq WMD reports by requesting that details of already disproved claims be included as if valid. Inspectors are said to have refused the request, saying that to include the false claims in their report would be ‘dishonest, deceitful and eventually disastrous’.[11]

  On 12 September, President Bush addressed the opening of the UN General Assembly, where he threw the Iraqi gauntlet at the feet of the prestigious international gathering. He challenged the United Nations body to face up to the ‘grave and gathering danger’ of Iraq – or to become irrelevant. The invitation – or ultimatum, depending upon the receiver – was translated into various languages and was unmistakably clear in all of them.

  One week later, continuing the theme discussed at West Point, Bush released his administration’s new National Security Strategy. It set out a more militarized policy, which, by now and to no one’s surprise, relied on first strikes. The United States would never allow a challenge to its military supremacy. Further, the United States would use its powers, both military and economic, to encourage ‘free and open societies’, with America defining both ‘free’ and ‘open’.

  Abroad, work was under way on the content of what would become Britain’s notorious intelligence dossier on Iraq. Dearlove was deeply concerned about including the 45-minute claim. He reportedly told Blair, just days before the prime minister presented the document to Parliament, that ‘the case is developmental and the source remains unproven’.

  Meanwhile, in the UN Security Council, the temperature of the debate over launching a pre-emptive war against Iraq continued to rise by the day. Mexico’s Aguilar Zinser, who was attempting to keep discussions productive, asked MI6 at this time: ‘Do you have full proof of the existence of these weapons, at any one of these particular sites that you are referring to?’ According to Aguilar Zinser, the answer was direct.

  ‘No, we don’t.’[12]

  Not entirely coincidentally, at the time Aguilar Zinser was one of America’s spy targets.

  Tension increased between Downing Street and the intelligence services, while the US team nervously kept its fingers crossed. Battles raged between Blair’s press officer, Alistair Campbell, and the head of MI5, Stephen Lander. The issue is said to have been disagreement over presentation of ‘straight’ rather than ‘spiced, or sexed up’ intelligence.

  On 24 September, the British dossier on Iraq was finally published, with a strongly worded introduction by the prime minister.[13] ‘The document discloses that his [Saddam’s] military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.’

  As it would turn out, of course, the ‘sexed up’ claim was as unreliable as its original source. It would become, however, a significant selling point for war in Colin Powell’s remarkable speech to the United Nations five months later. It was a strong and chilling threat and helped Powell make the case for war.

  While Blair was going through a proper British ‘rough patch’ promoting the idea of war to Parliament and even to some members of his cabinet, Bush was making significant progress in selling the Iraqi WMD threat to Congress. Saddam’s WMD were a threat to Middle East stability, American interests, and even world peace.

  On 11 October, the United States Congress adopted a joint resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq. Bush asked for a vote before the congressional adjournment in October, ‘for the sake of peace, for the sake of freedom for our country’.

  For the United States and the United Kingdom, the next step was drafting a new UNSC resolution imposing new arms inspections on Iraq and leaving little doubt as to dire consequences for non-compliance. On 11 November, the UN Security Council, in its 4,644th meeting, found Iraq in ‘material breach’ of disarmament obligations and offered the country a ‘final chance’ by complying with its tough new UNSC Resolution 1441.

  Some three weeks after adoption of Resolution 1441, weapons inspections resumed in Iraq under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency and UN experts. And a month after its adoption, on the sixty-first anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Iraq submitted a monumental 12,000-page declaration on its chemical, biological, and nuclear activities, claiming it had no banned weapons. The report was received with enormous scepticism. Saddam was back at his old game of lying.

  10 December was International Human Rights Day, celebrated in more than 150 US cities. Demonstrations, rallies, and vigils sent a clear message to the White House. War against Iraq, at least for now, was unacceptable. A popular theme of the public outcry was ‘Let the inspectors work.’ This sort of unfavourable public display had enervated President Nixon; it seemingly only energized President Bush.

  A similar message was sent to Downing Street. The number of protesters was unprecedented. There were additional demonstrations in London. Among those marching for peace at various times were Katharine Gun and friends from the intelligence community, each one looking over their shoulder, worried about being seen in the crowd.

  In the final significant scene before the holiday break in Washington, before the president and his close advisers would retreat to Texas, Bush approved the deployment of US troops to the Gulf region. There were arguments among the Bush team as to how and when to send how many troops. Timing was essential. Otherwise, the world would take note that war was imminent. Pundits were estimating that by March more than 200,000 US troops would be on the ground ready for war. They came close. And on 11 January, Tony Blair sent a naval task force to the Gulf. Aboard were 3,000 British marines. Two days later, an incautious Blair said that his country could act against Iraq, in US partnership, without a new UNSC resolution.

  On the twenty-eighth of the month, George Bush delivered his State of the Union speech, saying that Saddam was not disarming but deceiving.

  Three days after Bush’s inflammatory message, increasing top-level concern over wavering UN Security Council support for war sent the NSA’s Frank Koza to his computer. It was the same day as the Oval Office meeting of Bush, Blair, and Rice at which the understanding was clear. There was a single option left for legitimizing a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Self-defence wouldn’t work, and it was impossible to identify an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, given that none was looming on the relevant landscape. They needed a UNSC resolution.

  For most of the world, the Oval Office meeting would be kept secret for three years, until its contents were leaked, little by little at first, and then in full, on 27 March 2006, in a New York Times front-page story. Revealed was a memorandum written by David Manning, Tony Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser at the time. Manning dutifully summarized the shocking discussion that took place between Bush and Blair. The adviser’s notes confirmed what some in the intelligence community strongly suspected was happening behind the scenes, despite both public statements and secret assurances to the contrary. Among the suspicious had been certain members of the staff at Cheltenham, where Katharine worked.

  It was made clear in Manning’s report that George Bush discussed both legal and illegal means of obtaining an internationally recognized green light, an unqualified ‘go’ for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. By far, and patently obviously, the best choice was a new UN Security Council resolution specifically authorizing war, authorization lacking in the existing UNSCR 1441. Tony Blair agreed, noting that a resolution, among its other benefits, ‘would give us international cover’ – international political PR, as it were. Too, a resolution would be lawful, which appears, from Manning’s notes and other UK intelligence documents, to confirm that legal authorization for war seemed far more important to Blair than to Bush. Also essential, although
not specifically mentioned in this context, would be its value in building a strong military coalition for war.

  Alternatives to UN authorization reportedly suggested by Bush that day seem preposterous in the telling and read like lines in a silly, low-budget film. It might be necessary to paint a plane in UN colours and entice Saddam to fire on it, thus creating a catalyst for war. Or a defector could be found and convinced to speak about the existence of the annoyingly elusive WMDs, an existence both Bush and Blair doubted to a degree. And, last, there was the option of assassinating Saddam. Preposterous, but clues as to why having the NSA illegally spy on the personal lives of certain members of the Security Council must have sounded to Bush like a brilliant idea at the time. It would be instrumental in reaching a desired end, and a way of avoiding messy alternatives.

  The key to the ugly NSA gambit, then, was Bush’s determination to win a resolution at any cost. He insisted to Blair during the Oval Office meeting, ‘The United States would put its full weight behind efforts to get [the desired] resolution and would twist arms and even threaten.’ No longer could anyone deny the extent to which the president was willing to go to get what he so desperately wanted.

  This was the historic day when Koza e-mailed GCHQ. There was too much at stake, too much water over the proverbial dam, too much invested since George W. Bush took the White House in 2001, too much to be lost since the journey began, to depend upon diplomacy.

  All that had taken place thus far, all of their plans, were at stake. Baghdad, destination on the road map to war, a pathway pitted with lies and deception, must be reached at any cost. Given all that had transpired, it is clear why the world’s two top power brokers were willing to pursue the risky UN spy operation Katharine Gun revealed.