Congressional lawmakers risk endangering the country's security by focusing too much on the alleged missteps of the Bush administration and using the issue to score political points, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Monday. 

He said such inquiries, if handled in a hyper-partisan way, could "interfere" with the ability of intelligence agencies to protect the country. Panetta urged Congress not to be distracted from more pressing challenges. 

"If they start to use these issues as political clubs to beat each other up with, then that's when we not only pay a price, but this country pays a price," Panetta said. 

Panetta spoke at a luncheon in California in his first public appearance since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week accused the CIA of lying to Congress about its use of enhanced interrogation tactics during the Bush administration. 

Panetta, who denied the charge through a written statement, tried to quiet the debate Monday and offer a warning to those who "focus on the past." 

"As a creature of the Congress, I don't deny them the opportunity to learn the lessons from that period," Panetta, who once served as a California congressman, said at the luncheon for the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. "I think it's important to learn those lessons, so that we can move into the future. 

"But in doing that, we have to be very careful that we don't forget our responsibility to the present and to the future.... 

"We are a nation at war. We have to confront that reality every day, and while it's important to learn the lessons of the past, we must not do it in a way that sacrifices our capability to stay focused on the present, stay focused on the future and stay focused on those who threaten the United States of America." 

Panetta said Al Qaeda remains the "most serious security threat" to the country. 

He said he will continue to cooperate fully with those on the Senate intelligence committee looking into the drafting of interrogation policy. 

But he bemoaned the increasingly partisan atmosphere in Washington and said he's worried such investigations could go down the wrong path. 

"What I'm most concerned about is that this stuff doesn't become the kind of political issue that everything else becomes in Washington, D.C., where it becomes so divisive that it begins to interfere with the ability of the intelligence agencies to do our primary job, which is to focus on the threats that face us today and tomorrow," he said. 

Pelosi has come under fire from Republicans for her remarks last week, as they call on her to either prove her allegation or apologize. 

Some had also suggested that Obama must have known that Panetta would dispute Pelosi's charge last week, raising questions about where the president stands on the matter. 

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment in any depth on the controversy Monday. But when asked if the president has confidence in Pelosi, Gibbs replied, "He does."