NEW YORK, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- The highly anticipated memoir of a former U.S. Navy SEAL who helped kill al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden was released Tuesday.
Pre-sales already pushed "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden," by "Mark Owen," the pseudonym of author Matt Bissonnette, to the top of Amazon's bestseller list for two weeks, CNN reported.
The Defense Department has said the memoir violates secrecy agreements but the author's attorney disagrees with the Pentagon's argument.
In a letter addressed to the pen name "Owen," Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson said, "In the judgment of the Department of Defense, you are in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed. Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements."
The author's lawyer responded by saying Bissonnette "sought legal advice about his responsibilities before agreeing to publish his book and scrupulously reviewed the work to ensure that it did not disclose any material that would breach his agreements or put his former comrades at risk."
Dutton, a division of the Penguin publishing house, originally planned to release 300,000 copies, but increased the number to 575,000, Publisher's Weekly said.
