The Bush administration's difficulties over Iraq have intensified this week with the announcement that the Justice Department has launched a formal investigation into leaks about membership of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The development has emboldened the President's political opponents, giving the Democrats an opportunity to benefit from the administration's newly defensive stance, as its policies on Iraq come under more intense scrutiny.
This makes the issue much more important politically than the already serious one of whether administration sources illegally identified a covert CIA agent to take revenge for her husband's criticism of their policy on Iraq. President Bush says he wants the truth to emerge and has called on officials to co-operate fully with the Justice Department enquiry.
Democrats are making much of the enquiry's partisanship, since the Attorney General conducting it, Mr John Ashcroft, is a close political ally of the president. They are pressing for an independent counsel, recalling Republican responses to successive scandals in the Clinton administration.
If confirmed, the viciousness involved in leaking the information that Ms Valerie Plame is a CIA agent would say much about the Bush administration's intense partisanship. Her husband, Mr Joseph Wilson, was sent by the CIA to Niger in February 2002 to check out intelligence reports that that country sold Saddam Hussein uranium yellowcake to make nuclear weapons. He concluded the reports were fraudulent, based on forged documents and so reported to the agency.
A memorandum to this effect from the CIA director, Mr George Tenet, was overlooked or ignored by the White House, and the allegation was included in Mr Bush's State of the Union address last January. It undoubtedly formed an important part of his case for going to war, which provoked Mr Wilson to reveal the truth in a newspaper article.
That the episode should be compared to the Kelly scandal in Britain is not surprising; at this stage it appears to be another example of ruthless statecraft which has backfired on its perpetrators. In this case the apparent intention was to warn critics like Mr Wilson of the possible consequences of their actions.
This presents a classical dilemma for media which used the stories; they must protect their sources to keep open the possibility of reporting on similar administration disagreements in future - and have, besides, a strong First Amendment case to make concerning freedom of information and political accountability. Culpability rests with whoever leaked the information rather than the media reporting it.
The rationale for the war and its increasingly disastrous and costly outcome for the United States are fast catching up on the Bush administration and its conservative ideologues. These events bring it centre stage.