SAAII Award at the Oxford Union Society

On 23 Janu­ary the Oxford Uni­on Soci­ety will be host­ing the Sam Adams Award for Integ­rity in Intel­li­gence.

The SAAII is one of the few inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tions for those with­in the intel­li­gence com­munity who fol­low their con­science, often at great pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al cost.

Thomas_FingarThis year’s win­ner is Dr Tom Fin­gar, who headed up the 2007 US Nation­al Intel­li­gence Estim­ate on Iran. He col­lated the offi­cial assess­ments of all 16 of Amer­ica’s intel­li­gence agen­cies, which unan­im­ously assessed that Iran had ceased try­ing to build a nuc­le­ar weapon in 2003. This evid­ence-based ana­lys­is made it impossible for the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to push through its plans to launch a war against Iran in 2008. This excel­lent art­icle by ex-CIA ana­lyst Ray McGov­ern explains Dr Fin­gar’s achieve­ments far bet­ter than I could.

Former SAAII win­ners include FBI Coleen Row­ley, GCHQ Kath­er­ine Gun, NSA Thomas Drake, and Wikileaks supremo Juli­an Assange.

Over the last few weeks I have had the pleas­ure of work­ing with the Uni­on officers and fel­low SAAII­ers, espe­cially renowned peace act­iv­ists Ray McGov­ern and Eliza­beth Mur­ray (formerly of the US Nation­al Intel­li­gence Coun­cil), to organ­ise this event.  Many of us will be speak­ing that even­ing, and Juli­an Assange will be doing a live video link.

All this in recog­ni­tion of Dr Fin­gar’s con­tri­bu­tion to pro­fes­sion­al, eth­ic­al intel­li­gence work. Even in this “gloves-off”, post‑9/11 world, it is heart­en­ing to hear that is possible.

I hope that many people can sup­port and report on this event.

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