An unnamed former top Bush administration official told Politico's Mike Allen, “I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”

In the pre-Watergate, pre-Vietnam War era documents such as these remained classified for as long as 30 years. Most operational intelligence documents from World War II weren’t declassified until 1975, when most of the people responsible for them were dead. In Anthony Cave Brown’s great 1975 book, Bodyguard of Lies, he revealed details of top-secret intelligence deception operations from World War II that, had they been known at the time, or even a few years later, at the very least would have been controversial.

Churchill’s Coventry decision in particular provides an excellent example; he sacrificed hundreds of innocent British civilian lives to protect the ULTRA secret--the German cipher machine that allowed the allies to break the German’s codes. When ULTRA gave Churchill advanced warning of a massive German bombing raid on Coventry, England, on the night of November 14/15, 1940, he took no measures to warn residents of the city or do anything that might allow the Germans to suspect he was reading their messages. Hundreds died that night who could have been saved (554 killed, 865 seriously wounded, 4,000 other wounds, 50,749 structures destroyed or damaged).

The information about Coventry has been in the public domain now for over 30 years. But it was withheld for 30 years after the war. Had Clement Atlee, Churchill’s successor as British prime minister in 1945, declassified and released memos that revealed Churchill’s Coventry decision, Britons, especially relatives and friends of those killed, would have been outraged. Some may even have demanded Churchill’s criminal prosecution. Thirty years later, however, in the broader perspective of history, Churchill’s decision is seen in a different light, as a necessary act that ultimately saved countless more lives than were lost in Coventry.

President Bush’s decision to allow the CIA to use enhanced interrogation techniques in 2002 and 2003 pales by comparison to Churchill's decision not to warn the citizens of Coventry. No interrogated terrorist died or even suffered lasting physical injury. Nevertheless, just as the British people ultimately had the right to know what Churchill decided, what others did, and why they did it, Americans have the right to know what Bush decided, what the CIA did, and why they did it--at the proper time.

Releasing these documents now, when America is at war with a devious and dangerous enemy intent on destroying our way of life was not the proper time. Releasing them in the midst of a heated and often emotional debate on the issue, driven by partisan politics and disdain for Bush and Obama was not the proper time. Releasing them now only clouds the issue with rhetoric and further weakens our ability to obtain critical intelligence information from captured terrorists that could save countless America lives.

North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs and their support of international terrorists, who may obtain a nuclear weapon from them and detonate it in an American city, are as much a threat today as Nazi Germany was in the 1930s and 1940s? We should not make their task any easier for them. Time and history would have provided ample opportunities to study and reflect on the contents of these memos had they been released when the international and domestic political wars were over. US national interests, not international opinion should drive US decision making.