The situation is all the more worrying because of the recent war of words between Ms. Pelosi and the CIA. Pelosi said last week that she was told in a CIA briefing in 2003 that the practice of waterboarding was legal, but that it was not being used on detainees in U.S. custody. The CIA has disputed that account.

Reached at his Langley office, Mr. Panetta said, “Who? Nancy Puh-who? Pelosi? No. God, no. Never heard of her. Actually, this isn’t even Leon Panetta. This is someone else. This is Dan…Notpanetta. Okay? Thanks. Gotta go.”

“It is high time we got to the considering stage in terms of planning to eventually think about changing things,” Pelosi continued. “And in this Congress, that’s what we do. We take action. And we will, at some point in the future. But first, we must take action to talk about how we will take action. And that is what we did today. And it was extremely productive. We decided, for instance, that we’ll schedule a time tomorrow to really start thinking hard about which things we want to do something about. And that’s the kind of action I’m talking about.”