{"id":350582,"date":"2018-03-03T03:50:06","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T02:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/katharine-guns-risky-truth-telling-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-03-03T03:50:06","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T02:50:06","slug":"katharine-guns-risky-truth-telling-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/katharine-guns-risky-truth-telling-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Katharine Gun\u2019s Risky Truth-telling \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>From the Archive: On March 2, 2003, British intelligence official Katharine Gun blew the whistle on a pre-Iraq War ploy. On today\u2019s 15-year anniversary of that event, we republish a 2014 article about Gun\u2019s truth-telling by Sam Husseini.<\/p>\n<p>By Sam Husseini (<a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2014\/11\/19\/katharine-guns-risky-truth-telling\/\">first published Nov. 19, 2014<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt it was explosive, it really made me angry when I read it. \u2026 I genuinely hoped that the information would strengthen the people\u2019s voice. \u2026 It could derail the entire process for war.\u201d So said Katharine Gun recently when asked about information she leaked shortly before the invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t self-serving hyperbole. Daniel Ellsberg, who himself leaked the Pentagon Papers, has called\u00a0Katharine\u00a0Gun\u2019s leak \u201cthe most important and courageous leak I have ever seen. No one else \u2014 including myself \u2014 has ever done what Gun did: tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8924\" style=\"max-width: 187px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/katharinegun-bbc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/katharinegun-bbc.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8924\" alt=\"Former British intelligence officer Katharine Gun. (Photo credit: BBC)\" width=\"177\" height=\"180\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8924\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/katharinegun-bbc.jpg\" alt=\"Former British intelligence officer Katharine Gun. (Photo credit: BBC)\" width=\"177\" height=\"180\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former British intelligence officer Katharine Gun. (Photo credit: BBC)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>And indeed, Ellsberg had asked for such a leak during this period. He had been saying during the run-up to the Iraq invasion: \u201cDon\u2019t wait until the bombs start falling. \u2026 If you know the public is being lied to and you have documents to prove it, go to Congress and go to the press. \u2026 Do what I wish I had done before the bombs started falling [in Vietnam] \u2026 I think there is some chance that the truth could avert war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers \u2014 internal documents which showed a pattern of U.S. government deception about the Vietnam War \u2014 in 1971, though he had the information earlier. And while the Pentagon Papers, the leaks by Chelsea Manning to WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden\u2019s National Security Agency leaks were all quite massive, the\u00a0Katharine\u00a0Gun leak was just 300 words. Its power came from its timeliness.<\/p>\n<p>In October of 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the so-called Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. In November, the U.S. government had gotten the United Nations Security Council to pass a threatening resolution on Iraq, but in most people\u2019s view, it stopped short of actually&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2018\/03\/02\/katharine-guns-risky-truth-telling-2\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Archive: On March 2, 2003, British intelligence official Katharine Gun blew the whistle on a pre-Iraq War ploy. On today\u2019s 15-year anniversary of that event, we republish a 2014 article about Gun\u2019s truth-telling by Sam Husseini. By Sam Husseini (first published Nov. 19, 2014) \u201cI felt it was explosive, it really made me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-350582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}