In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, a young British intelligence officer thought she had information that could halt the march to war. To leak that information, however, would mean breaking her pledge to protect state secrets.

In the end, Katherine Gun decided to reveal what she had discovered--an illegal plot to influence the UN's authorization of the invasion. Gun's decision led to her arrest and sparked a legal, political, and media firestorm.

Gun's spectacular story was big news in Britain, where it preceded the resignations of two cabinet officers. But as media critic Norman Solomon's foreword makes clear, the maelstrom barely received a footnote in the American war coverage.

Part cloak and dagger, part courtroom drama, The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War tells the whole story. It also explores the moral dilemma of a public servant who swears to protect state secrets--even when that pledge would conceal illicit activity to push an unpopular war.