The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War

by Marcia Mitchell

  Because one paragraph in Wilmshurst’s letter of resignation was censored by the government ‘in the public interest’, there was enormous interest in just what that paragraph said. The full document was released by the BBC on 3 March 2005, under the Freedom of Information Act. The missing paragraph revealed that the attorney general’s second opinion differed markedly from the first. With Wilmshurst, he had shared the belief that pre-emptive invasion of Iraq could be seriously open to legal challenge, even, although remotely, to war crimes charges. But his second, hurry-up opinion had switched to ‘what is now the official line’. Details of what the original opinion contained would come later, when the prime minister was forced to reveal its full content.

  On 17 March, the same day Blair announced that war would not be in violation of international law, Robin Cook delivered his resignation speech to the House of Commons. Applause for the resigning leader of the House was said to have been unprecedented. Cook was generous in his comments about the prime minister, expressing his hope that Blair would remain in office and making it clear he would not support those who wanted to use the current crisis to displace him. But Cook was clear in his opposition to Blair’s determination to go to war. Cook, like Short, wanted UN approval and more time for alternatives, especially continued inspections.

  ‘It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections,’ Cook said. Germany wanted more time, as did Russia. There was not the necessary international support for abandoning alternatives to war. ‘The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner – not NATO, not the European Union, and now, not the Security Council.

  ‘Only a year ago,’ Cook said, ‘we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.’ Sadly, he noted, ‘History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.’

  Cook said he would resign if the United States and the United Kingdom went ahead with their planned pre-emptive attack, and he did promptly, as promised. A year later, looking back with no regrets, he said, ‘President Bush was definite and apocalyptic,’ quoting the president as having claimed that ‘Saddam is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to intimidate the civilized world.’[15]

  It was different with Clare Short, and she suffered for that difference. Short, head of the Department for International Development (DfID), had declared her intention to resign from Blair’s cabinet if the attack took place without UN approval, but she did not, at least not immediately. Convinced that her efforts were needed in getting a UN mandate for reconstruction and the subsequent redevelopment of Iraq, she decided to stay on – even to the degree of supporting Blair’s decision to invade. War was now inevitable, and attention should be turned toward post-war exigencies. Without the necessary mandate and broad international support, the victors would simply be occupiers, rather than implementers of a new political system, protectors of the citizenry, builders of a new infrastructure.

  In spite of focusing on reconstruction, Short was active in last-minute attempts to avoid war, meeting with Blair, pleading for more time. One of those attempts involved an anti-war plan conceived in the United States by a federation of churches. A federation leader, evangelical minister Jim Wallis, had called Short in February asking to bring a delegation united against the war to London. She was immediately supportive.

  The church delegation had an alternative, a five-point plan worth serious attention. It had purchased advertisements in newspapers, but the American public was not responding, its attention captured by a constant White House spin. How bizarre that the policies of George Bush and company, who had taken ownership of ‘values’ and Christian faith, were so challenged by dedicated believers in both.

  The church plan included a process for deposing Saddam by indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity, intensifying WMD inspections, fostering a democratic Iraq, organizing immediate and massive humanitarian efforts for Iraq, and implementing the road map to a Palestinian state by 2005. It sounded good to Short, better than what was coming from Downing Street or Pennsylvania Avenue, but it appeared that neither occupant of those addresses was interested. They were packed for the trip to Baghdad.

  Because she did not resign when the attack against Iraq was launched, Short was widely criticized for flip-floppy behaviour. On 12 May, after the war was a ‘mission accomplished’, she did leave the cabinet. As was true with both Wilmshurst and Cook, there seemed to be no other choice. She had no UN mandate for reconstruction in hand, which, given her DfID responsibilities, was of critical import. Further, she had no doubt that Blair had lied to her on numerous occasions.

  She writes, ‘I was absolutely clear I had to leave the government. Blair had failed to restrain the US rush to war and then broken his promise on internationalising reconstruction. The situation in the Middle East was disastrous and the behaviour of the Prime Minister indefensible.’[16]

  Blair accepted Short’s resignation, offering compliments for her work as head of DfID, but also questioning her complaint about ‘internationalising’ reconstruction of a defeated Iraq. He said he was working on getting a UN mandate. Why was she questioning him?

  Short has spoken candidly about the run-up to the war and the American involvement, more so than any other member of her government. Although she left the cabinet, her constituents continue to elect her to office. She is loved, despised, praised, and castigated, depending upon the eye of the beholder. It is not difficult to determine the view in Blair’s eye. Asked about her ensuing relationship with the prime minister, she told the authors, ‘There isn’t any.’ When they happen to run into each other in one hallway or another, he ‘simply looks away’.

  What is most amazing is that within the United States, Britain’s partner in war and peace, almost no notice was taken of the enormous upheaval across the Atlantic, an upheaval placed at Washington’s doorstep by much of the world community. Clearly visible, parked at that same doorstep, was the outrageous violation of international law and ethics perpetrated by the United States in its spy operation designed to coerce support for an unpopular war.

  How could America fail to notice what was happening abroad? How could it fail to care? Perhaps, just perhaps, because that failure was carefully and skilfully engineered.

  CHAPTER 7: Silence in Washington

  At some moments in history, when war and peace hang in the balance, journalism delayed is journalism denied.

  – Norman Solomon, 10 March 2003

  ON THE SUNDAY the Observer broke the story of Frank Koza’s message to GCHQ, 2 March 2003, Martin Bright received telephone calls from several major US news sources, including NBC, Fox News, and CNN. The callers were so excited, so eager to do their own reports, that they ordered cars to collect Martin from his home or wherever he might be at any given moment and rush him to interviews at various London locations. In short order, each called back and apologetically cancelled. Sorry, Mr Bright, we won’t be covering the story. To this day, Martin cannot believe what happened.

  ‘We’re still scratching our heads. It was amazing.’

  It was inevitable, given instantaneous communication across the Atlantic, that the White House would be asked about the Koza story. Unfortunately, spokesman Ari Fleischer explained, nobody in Washington could respond to questions concerning national security matters – not anyone from the administration, defence, or any of the intelligence agencies (of course), or anyone involved in international law issues. Lips were zipped shut. But even the silence was not a subject for media attention. Few were concerned about Washington’s failure to respond to questions, or even about questions that might have been raised.

  Three days after Bright and company’s revelations appeared in the Observer, The Times called the Koza fiasco ‘an embarrassing disclosure’ and ‘the most recent setba
ck’ in the US effort to gain support for war against Iraq. Newspapers elsewhere in the world carried the shameful story, including the outrage expressed by various UN delegations. By this time, the story had legs and was big news. Except within the United States, which was responsible for its existence.

  The profound silence in Washington and across the United States was deafening. The absolute quiet smothered what would have been breaking news of an egregious error in judgement and of a tragic failure of the national ethic. In the always chaotic, cacophonous media centres of the US, a story exploding in headlines around the world was ignored. Such an embarrassment was this particular spying operation, with its attendant apparent international blackmail implications, that the whole business was immediately deep-sixed or, perhaps, studied and discussed and then deep-sixed.

  But this is not supposed to happen in the United States! A free, independent media serves as a watchdog in cases like this. The various media make their own decisions about what to report and what not to report, and keeping the government honest is assumed to be a cornerstone of journalistic endeavour. Unless, of course, the issue involved is national security, which, it seems, has come to include everything the administration does not want to see in print or watch on the evening news. In these cases, the assumption fails.

  Blacked out, then, are distracting images like flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or the most seriously wounded of thousands still in military hospitals. Exceptions to the latter are poignant photo ops of half a dozen carefully chosen injured who are guaranteed to greet their commander in chief with thankful, brave smiles. Now and again something goes terribly wrong, however, like photos of sexually abused Iraqi prisoners of war that reach the general public. There is no question that ‘national security’ has become the reason-of-choice to protect the citizenry from questionable government behaviour.

  During World War II, for the most part, the news media cooperated fully with the government in withholding war-related information considered vital. ‘National security’ had a more precise definition, one easily understood and widely accepted. It was all-out war, with issues more militarily than politically defined. A veteran broadcaster reflected on this earlier media–government relationship when asked by the authors about the lack of coverage of the Frank Koza story. His response was simple.

  ‘I was surprised they still have that power.’

  The ‘nation’s newspaper’, the prestigious New York Times, failed to tell its readers that a message had been sent from the National Security Agency asking British colleagues at GCHQ to take part in what the rest of the world was calling ‘dirty tricks in high places’. Very high, given the frantic push at Downing Street and the White House to secure a UNSC resolution to legitimize a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

  At the time, writer and political pundit Norman Solomon asked the New York Times about covering the story.

  ‘Well, it’s not that we haven’t been interested,’ Alison Smale, the newspaper’s deputy foreign editor, told him. The decision had been made not to ‘relay’ the Observer story. ‘We would normally expect to do our own intelligence reporting.’

  Oh? And where was this reporting? ‘We are still definitely looking into it. It’s not that we’re not,’ Smale explained. Apparently in the process of ‘looking into it’, the New York Times could get neither ‘comment nor confirmation’ from US officials, hardly surprisingly, and hardly a reason not to do said intelligence reporting of its own.

  One would think that the Washington Post would have leaped on the story, for it is from Washington that news about the US government emanates. But there was no leap, only a short tiptoe on 4 March, day three of the leaked news. On page A17, sufficiently far back from Really Important Happenings, the Post carried in its final edition a 480-word account headlined ‘Spying Report No Shock to the UN’, a ho-hum piece noting that spying on the United Nations was an old sport with lots of players. This new adventure was hardly worth serious attention.

  Ironically, on the very day of the Observer story, the Post’s Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a commentary for the Washington paper headlined ‘Accused of Irrelevance and Deeply Divided Over Iraq, the United Nations Has Never Mattered More’.

  Observed Slaughter, ‘Whatever their stance on a war in Iraq, policy makers and pundits seem to agree on one thing: The present crisis puts the relevance and credibility of the United Nations on the line.’ It would seem that the Post, noting the ‘relevance and credibility’ of the United Nations, might find the Koza story worthy of greater attention than it received.

  The Post continued to report on the heated UN debate over war against Iraq as the week went on. Strong opposition by France, Germany, and Russia was noted, but no mention was made of the outrage expressed about the NSA operation. Five days after the Observer story, the Post carried the word that ‘Bush Is Ready to Go Without UN; But US to Seek Security Council Vote Next Week’. Again, there was nothing said about the fact that Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea, and Pakistan, the specific NSA targets, were fiercely angry at the United States and that chances of getting favourable votes from these swing nations were now nil.

  At the end of the week Senator Joseph Biden Jr, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote an op-ed piece for the Post, urging passage of the proposed, hotly debated UN resolution. ‘France, Russia and Germany are engaged in a game of dangerous brinkmanship at the United Nations,’ he warned. ‘Some in the Bush administration have responded in kind.’ (If he considered the spy operation an exercise in brinkmanship, Biden refrained from specifics, and his office has failed to respond to the authors about his thinking at the time.) ‘Together, they threaten to drive the interests of our countries over a cliff.’

  The senator held out hope that there was ‘still time to pull back from the precipice and disarm Iraq without dividing the Atlantic alliance and debilitating the Security Council’. But the Security Council had already been debilitated, and the interests of the country, in the form of the desired resolution, had already disappeared over the cliff.

  What little attention was paid by the US media to the published leak focused entirely on the theme of the Post story. Everyone knows everyone has spied on the United Nations. Daily sweeping of offices takes place to ensure that bugs are exterminated. Conversations of substance are held in sealed rooms or in public parks. So, what was new about the Koza story? On 4 March, the Los Angeles Times carried a piece on the story, with the same theme. Bottom line: so what?

  ‘Forgery or no [the Koza e-mail], some say it’s nothing to get worked up about,’ assured the Los Angeles paper. The ‘purported’ spy memo could add to US troubles at the United Nations, the article conceded; however, as is so well known, this sort of spying has gone on since the United Nations was founded in 1945. It’s just more of the same old stuff – so what’s new?

  What was new, once again, was the intent behind the spying, an intent that had all of the characteristics of big money blackmail, of setting up a scheme whereby two powerful nations could claim the backing of a strong, willing coalition, when coercion rather than cooperation had been the key.

  There is also the matter of intimidation. Bright’s co-author Ed Vulliamy noted that although people around the world were furious over the US plot to manipulate Security Council votes, ‘Almost all governments are extremely reluctant to speak up against the [NSA-initiated] espionage. This further illustrates their vulnerability to the US government.’

  If that vulnerability kept ‘official’ complaints from being filed by governments, individuals from foreign nations were speaking up in unofficial fury and anger. Here were news stories that merited huge headlines. Foreign diplomats were raging about the US violation of international law. The country’s reputation as leader of the free world, as a government of integrity and moral correctness was sorely sullied. There was plenty to write about. The problem was that Washington did not want to hear this discouraging news and certainly did not want the American
public to be bothered with it as well.

  The implication here is that official Washington was unofficially able to influence major media sources with regard to publicizing the Koza caper. What other reason would there be for the abrupt change of plans to interview Martin Bright immediately following publication of his story? For simply ignoring an international brouhaha of enormous proportion that so directly affected the US and its interests? Yet one must admit that this inference could be entirely wrong. No such evidence to support it was found. It could have been a matter of extraordinary coincidence that both the Bush administration and the nation’s most prestigious media agreed that the spy operation, and the ensuing international outrage, did not merit public attention.

  CHAPTER 8: Taiwan Calling

  A 28-year-old woman employee at GCHQ was arrested last week by Gloucestershire police and released on bail. A GCHQ spokesman declined to give further details … The leak of the memo reflects deep unease throughout Whitehall about the Bush administration’s conduct in the growing Iraq crisis. It is severely embarrassing to GCHQ and to Tony Blair at a time of widespread doubts about the morality of an invasion of Iraq.

  – Jeevan Vasagar and Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, 10 March 2003

  THE WOMAN ARRESTED was not publicly named. Her identity was kept secret for months – at first, even from her family.

  ‘I was released from police custody on Thursday at lunchtime. I went home and immediately called my parents in Taiwan and told them that I was in a bit of trouble, but I didn’t tell them that I had leaked the memo or that I had been arrested. It was only when they read the Guardian story about the arrest of a 28-year-old woman at GCHQ the next week that they put it all together. I didn’t tell my grandmother or any of my relatives until at least the day my parents realized the truth and called me.’