J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo
The head of the CIA called on Congress to bury the hatchet, saying the focus on past actions of the agency was distracting it from its "core mission." Writing an opinion piece in the The Washington Post, sure to be a leading topic on the Sunday morning shows, Leon Panetta said the past eight years have been marred by "an atmosphere of declining trust, growing frustration and more frequent leaks of properly classified information." The nation's leading spook tried to shift some of the blame for past abuses. "It is worth remembering," he wrote, "that the CIA implements presidential decisions; we do not make them." Panetta criticized Congress for leaks. He added, "Debates over who knew what when—or what happened seven years ago—miss a larger, more important point. We are a nation at war in a dangerous world, and good intelligence is vital to us all."