Pelosi v. CIA

Videotapes for agents, secrecy for the Speaker.

The last time the CIA and Nancy Pelosi were in the news together, the House Speaker was accusing the agency of lying about its briefings to Congress on the interrogation of al Qaeda detainees. This week, the Speaker's fellow Democrats are set to block public disclosure of what Ms. Pelosi was really told and when.

Democrats recently marked up the 2010 intelligence bill, and Republican Pete Hoekstra offered an amendment in committee to require the CIA to make public an unclassified version of its records on Congressional briefings. It also would have required the CIA to disclose the information gleaned from those interrogations.

Democrats have spent years demanding a "truth commission" into interrogations, so you'd think such public disclosure would be welcome. Ah, that was when a different guy was in the White House and before Mrs. Pelosi had made her own veracity an issue. Suddenly, she's all for secrecy. And sure enough, Intelligence Committee Democrats lined up to protect their leader and defeated the Hoekstra amendment on a party line vote. This follows Democratic rejection of a resolution by Utah Republican Rob Bishop to initiate a bipartisan investigation of Mrs. Pelosi's accusation.

CIA employees weren't so lucky. Chairman Silvestre Reyes's Intelligence Democrats passed a new requirement that the CIA videotape all detainee interrogations. This is a sop to the anti-antiterror left, which wants heads to roll because the CIA destroyed tapes of the interrogations of the likes of terrorist Abu Zubaydah. CIA clandestine chief Jose Rodriguez ordered those tapes destroyed precisely because he worried they might leak and compromise U.S. methods. Republicans offered an amendment to strip the videotape provision but lost on another partisan vote.

This fits the Pelosi policy that the wartime decisions of CIA agents can and will be second-guessed years later, but Congressional acquiescence in those decisions is off-limits. Philip Mudd, a respected career intelligence officer, was recently blackballed by Congress for a Homeland Security job because he knew about harsh interrogations. The message to CIA operatives is don't take any risks for national security, and better have a lawyer on speed dial. All of which belies President Obama's promise that there would be no political recriminations for CIA actions taken after 9/11. Meanwhile, CIA Director Leon Panetta has so far said nothing publicly about the House's videotape provision.

Democrats intend to bring the intelligence bill to the House floor this week, and Republicans are preparing a new set of amendments. At least on the videotapes, Mr. Obama ought to spend some political capital in the cause of protecting the spies we need to defend the country.