As things turned out, a second UN resolution to authorize the war against Iraq never materialized and air strikes began on March 19. By the time President Obama declared the war against Iraq to be officially over on August 31, 2010, more than 24,000 members of the so-called “coalition forces” were dead, another 117,000 wounded, and 151,000 civilians lay dead, many by unspeakably violent means.
Ten years ago a shy, introverted British translator with skills in Mandarin leaked an e-mail she had received at her desk at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, England. The leak came close to averting the Iraq War and changing the course of history. The memo, sent from Frank Koza, chief of staff at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), was essentially a direct order to Katharine Gun and others in her section to monitor, track, follow, and develop information from UN diplomats from six key nations that were waffling in their support of a UN resolution permitting action against Iraq because of its perceived threat against the peace and security of the world.
This violated not only the independence of the GCHQ from the NSA and the sovereignty inherent in that independence, but also various laws against interfering with diplomats representing their countries’ interests at the UN. Further, the information sought would also likely have been personal in nature, with the resulting possibility of the threat of blackmail against those diplomats who refused to “get in line” and support the UN resolution for war against Iraq.
The Koza e-mail was, in short, a blockbuster, and it took Gun’s breath away. In an interview with Amy Gordon for Democracy Now! in September, 2004, she recounted what happened:
I was working for Government Communication Headquarters in the U.K., which is the equivalent to N.S.A. here in the U.S., and I was a Chinese linguist at the time, and this email crossed my desk in my in-box in January of 2003.
At that time, as we all know, it was a crucial time for the U.N. in its decision-making process as to whether or not a resolution was needed with regard to Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction.
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