As we learned following the killing of Osama bin Laden, enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) played an important role in the CIA eventually tracking him to his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound. It’s time to stop the spurious arguments about EITs and for Congress to enact a law permitting the President of the United States, and only the President, to authorize the use of well defined and limited EITs when he determines they are essential to the national security of the United States.

Senior George W. Bush administration officials have maintained all along that the vast majority of actionable intelligence that enabled the U.S. counterterrorism community to thwart al-Qaeda attacks after 9/11 came from information obtained following the use of EITs. Nevertheless, the Obama administration banned them and continues to seek the prosecution of CIA interrogators who used them.

Now we learn that information about the importance of an al-Qaeda courier that eventually led the CIA to Osama bin Laden, was obtained after using EITs on two high-value detainees—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his successor abu Faraj al-Libbi. Sen. John McCain, in his May 11 op-ed in the Washingtoin Post disputes this; but top Bush administration officials—former CIA director Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence "Mike" McConnell, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and former head of counterterrorism at the CIA Jose Rodriguez disagree with McCain.

McCain bases his argument on information provided to him by current CIA director Leon Panetta that “The first mention of (the courier) Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti . . . as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured.” Panetta went on to tell McCain that the use of EITs on KSM produced “false and misleading information;” in other words, they don’t work.

Hayden, McConnell, Mukasey, and Rodriguez, all with direct access to the classified information obtained from KSM and al-Libbi following the use of EITs, insist that they provided the most important early clues that helped lead the CIA to al-Kuwaiti. Indeed, it was KSMs and al-Libbi’s attempts to mislead their interrogators that convinced the CIA of al-Kuwaiti’s importance.

This dispute in the context National Security Advisor Tom Donilon’s talking-points response to Chris Wallace on May 8’s Fox News Sunday only further confuses the debate. Wallace asked Donilon “. . .why is shooting an unarmed man in the face legal and proper while enhanced interrogation, including waterboarding of a detainee under very strict controls and limits, why is that over the line?” Donilon responded, “Because, well, our judgment is that it’s not consistent with our values, not consistent and not necessary in terms of getting the kind of intelligence that we need. . . . We are [sic] at war with Osama bin Laden.” Donilon didn’t explain how we can only be at war with the terrorist we kill and not terrorists we interrogate.

President Obama and senior members of his administration refuse to admit that their claims EITs are not consistent with American values and that they don’t work are not supported by the facts. The majority of Americans in poll after poll say they approve of EITs to save American lives. Their role in finding and killing of Osama Bin Laden and foiling many terrorist plots after 9/11 proves that in the hands of skilled interrogators, they do work.

Furthermore, equating the EITs used by the CIA with “torture,” as opponents of EITs routinely do, is misleading. There is a difference between the EITs the CIA used on al-Libbi, KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and the kind of torture used on people like Sen. John McCain when he was a POW in Hanoi. The EITs used by CIA interrogators on al-Qaeda terrorists were carefully crafted, monitored, and limited so as not to result in injury to the detainee. Sen. McCain still can’t lift his arms above his head because of the brutal, sadistic beatings he endured over several years in captivity. Waterboarding applied by CIA interrogators after 9/11 was not the same as that applied by the Japanese on U.S. captives during World War II which resulted in the death by drowning of many on whom it was used during their brutal and often fatal captivity.

Nevertheless, this debate, for the time being at least, is purely academic. Sooner or later, however, the current or a future President of the United States will find himself in a situation similar to the one President George W. Bush was in after 9/11. He will have in custody an enemy combatant/terrorist with information that could save hundreds, thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of American lives. What they do in that situation could permanently change the course of American history.

What’s needed before then is a law that allows the President of the United States, and him only, to authorize the use of specific EITs on enemy combatants when he determines that a grave threat to our national security warrants their use. This law also should require the President to report in a classified briefing to the Speaker and Minority leader of the House of Representatives and the Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate within 90 days of their use. And unless Attorney General Eric Holder comes to his senses before hand, the law should also grant immunity from prosecution to those CIA interrogators currently still under investigation for using authorized EITs after 9/11.

The principal obstacle to passing such a law is that it's unlikely to make it through Congress given its current makeup. Even if it did, President Obama likely would veto it, arguing that it would further diminish the United States in the eyes of the world. But as long as the war with Islamist-jihadism exists, debate moderators and media interviewers will ask every presidential candidate where they stand on the use of EITs. American voters will have the opportunity to elect or reject candidates whose views on this issue do not conform to their own. A future president with a different Congress may well pass such a law. In any event, presidents like Mr. Obama who oppose the use of EITs would not have to use the authority.