The Truth is Always the First Casualty of War


Director: Gavin Hood
Writers: Sara Bernstein, Gregory Bernstein, Gavin Hood
Stars: Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes

Katharine Gun (played by Keira Knightley) was a young specialist working for Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters when she exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States was working with the United Kingdom to collect sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members in order to pressure them into supporting the Iraq invasion.
Gun leaked the memo to the press in 2003, setting off a chain of events that jeopardized her freedom and safety, but also opened the door to putting the entire legality of the Iraq invasion on trial.

The legal case against Gun was eventually dropped by the British government in 2004, after her lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC (played by Ralph Fiennes), threatened to use disclosure to put the legal basis of the war itself on trial. Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service and finally, struggling for work, left Britain altogether.

-end c/p