This week's commemoration of 9/11, as well as the called-off Camp David summit with the Taliban, reminded many about the origins of a generation of conflict that began 18 years ago.
What would soon be labeled "the war on terror" didn't end in South Asia, however.
It moved to the Mideast.
"After the invasion of Afghanistan, when the focus suddenly turned toward Iraq, I suddenly thought, 'What on earth had Iraq got to do with the war on terror?' " Katharine Gun told me this week. Gun is the British intelligence specialist who in 2003 leaked a U.S. National Security Agency e-mail about efforts to collect compromising information on U.N. Security Council members in order to pressure them to vote for a resolution on Iraq.
She's also the subject of a gripping new film, "Official Secrets," that premieres Friday at the Edina Theater.
Keira Knightley delivers a compelling portrayal of Gun, whose case became an incendiary international issue and a symbol of how the run-up to the war ran roughshod over the truth. The movie is riveting — part spy thriller, part legal drama and part political film — and many who see it may be left with the sense that after all these years the Iraq war debate remains just as raw today.
Gun described how she recoiled after receiving the memo. "My God, they're going behind diplomats' backs to try to secure this resolution which authorizes an invasion of Iraq, and it was an immediate red flag to me," she recalled thinking.
"It was like, wow, if people knew all this talk about trying to get a diplomatic solution, it was just a cover so they could get an invasion, that would maybe slow it down or delay it; it would give weapons inspectors more time, and I thought straight away, 'I've got to get this out.' "