Marc Thiessen

Thiessen's first book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, was published by Regnery Publishing in January 2010. In the book he argued that the CIA's systematic use of enhanced interrogation techniques was effective, lawful, and moral.[15] The book was endorsed by the former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey.[16] It reached the No. 9 spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list for hardcover nonfiction in February 2010.[17]

Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, heavily criticized Courting Disaster; in a book review in the New Yorker, Mayer wrote that Thiessen's book was "based on a series of slipshod premises" and was "better at conveying fear than at relaying the facts."[18] In the book, Thiessen writes, "In the decade before the C.I.A. began interrogating captured terrorists, Al-Qaeda launched repeated attacks against America. In the eight years since the C.I.A. began interrogating captured terrorists, Al-Qaeda has not succeeded in launching one single attack on the homeland or American interests abroad."[18] Mayer wrote, "This is not exactly a textbook demonstration of causality", and noted that Thiessen's claim was false anyway; Al-Qaeda had launched numerous attacks targeting Americans since the start of the torture program.[18] Mayer ended her review with a criticism of the Obama administration for not convening a commission on the Bush administration's torture, thus allowing Thiessen and other proponents of torture to whitewash history.[18][19]

The 6,700-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture found that the CIA's enhanced interrogation program was not an effective method of gathering intelligence.[20] The report was approved with seven Democrats, one Independent, and one Republican voting in favor, and six Republicans voting against.[21]

A pseudonymous former military interrogator and author of How to Break a Terrorist, writing for Slate, characterized Thiessen's book as "a literary defense of war criminals" and criticized Thiessen for relying solely on the opinions of CIA interrogators.[22]