On Sept. 4, 2002, almost a year after the worst terrorist attacks in this nation's history, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing about the agency's interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al Qaeda operative. She and other congressional leaders were told about specific techniques used against Zubaydah, including waterboarding, then permissible under Department of Justice guidelines. ...

Flash forward to 2009. Justice Department officials now call waterboarding torture. There's a fierce debate about whether such harsh measures work and when, if ever, they are justified. ...

We need a get-some-truth-from-the-speaker commission. ...

A synopsis: At first she said she had not been told about the use of waterboarding against suspects. Then she admitted she had been briefed on that. But she said she didn't speak out against the methods because of secrecy rules. Then she accused the CIA and the Bush administration of lying to Congress about what was actually happening with those suspects. That accusation rightfully drew a sharp rebuke from CIA Director Leon Panetta, a former Democratic member of the House. He warned that when politicians "start to use these issues as political clubs to beat each other with, that's when we not only pay a price, but this country pays a price." He urged leaders to "stay focused on the present, to stay focused on the future, and to stay focused on those things that may threaten the United States of America."

Panetta has it exactly right.