Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack (Hardcover)

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen was locked in a secure room and given access to the most sensitive intelligence when he was tasked to write President George W. Bush’s 2006 speech explaining the CIA’s interrogation program and why Congress should authorize it. Few know more about these CIA operations than Thiessen, and in his new book, Courting Disaster, he documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence. Thiessen also shows how reckless President Obama has been in shutting down the CIA’s program and releasing secret documents that have aided our enemies. Courting Disaster proves:

How the CIA program thwarted specific deadly attacks against the U.S.
Why “enhanced interrogation” was not torture by any reasonable legal or moral standard
How the information gained by “enhanced interrogation” could not have been acquired any other way
How President Obama’s actions since taking office have left America much more vulnerable to attack

In chilling detail, Thiessen reveals how close the terrorists came to striking again, how intelligence gained from “enhanced interrogation” repeatedly stymied their plots, and how President Obama’s dismantling of this CIA program is inviting disaster for America.

From the Inside Flap
Waterboarding Al Qaeda Leaders Prevented Terrorist Attacks and Saved Thousands of Lives…

Now Barack Obama Wants to Prosecute The Men and Women Who Kept Us Safe

Marc Thiessen knows more than almost anyone outside the CIA about what went on at CIA “black sites” and at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As chief speechwriter for President Bush, he was given unprecedented access to some of the most sensitive intelligence our government possessed on al Qaeda terrorists. He has since spent countless hours interviewing the men and women involved in the interrogations at every level—from Vice President Dick Cheney to the interrogators themselves. What he reveals is a shocking, thoroughly documented account of just how close we came to suffering follow-on 9/11 attacks, how so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (including waterboarding) were directly responsible for unearthing the actionable intelligence that foiled them, and the extraordinary measures the Bush administration took to stay well within the bounds of what was not only legally but morally right.

Courting Disaster shows how America’s dedicated intelligence professionals went head-to-head with the world’s most dangerous terrorists, and won—only to have Barack Obama expose America’s secrets to the enemy, endorse smears against our intelligence officers, and put them at risk of prosecution for defending our country. In Courting Disaster, Thiessen reveals:

Why “enhanced interrogation techniques” did not qualify as torture by any objective standard
Specific terrorist plots foiled by the CIA, based on information that came from “enhanced interrogation”—ranging from attacks against Los Angeles and London to the breaking up of an al Qaeda cell that was developing anthrax for terrorist attacks inside the United States
New evidence that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about and approved CIA waterboarding
The real stories of abuse at Guantanamo—not of the detainees by the guards, but of the guards by the detainees, and how released detainees have returned to the jihad
How the Obama administration is giving captured terrorists more legal rights than are granted to legitimate prisoners of war—and denying our intelligence officers tools that police officers use everyday to question common criminals
How information released by Barack Obama has aided our enemies and put America at greater risk of another terrorist attack
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