Blair takes the hot seat in Britain's Iraq-war affair

"He will be asked how much pressure to reveal Kelly came from his office or from the prime minister himself," says Iain McLean, professor in politics at Oxford University. "A more important question would be, 'Who hardened up the dossier, when, and why?' The inquiry has found out a surprising amount about that."

Indeed, although not strictly tasked with examining whether the dossier was hyped up, the three-week-old hearings have teased out some fascinating snippets.

A snowstorm of e-mails from intelligence officers and Blair's aides betray an effort to get hard and fast WMD intelligence for inclusion in the fall dossier. A picture is emerging of government officials appealing to the intelligence community for any scraps that could be pulled together to make the dossier more convincing.

"The prime minister's office has been doing what prime minister's offices always do, and that is spin," says Professor McLean. "Mr. Blair may be able to make a clean breast of 'outing' Dr. Kelly by saying it was important for national security, and that he didn't know he would go on to kill himself," but it will be harder for him to wiggle free from the charges that his aides "hardened up the dossier," he says.

Though the BBC's broad allegation of exaggeration may well be upheld, the corporation is unlikely to come out of the Hutton inquiry with its reputation enhanced. The inquiry has learned that although editors publicly backed the reporter at the heart of the story, Andrew Gilligan, in private they were not impressed by his choice of language, which may, in turn, have exaggerated his own story.

Gilligan has, moreover, sullied his own reputation by trying to steer parliamentary hearings on the matter in his favor through ill-advised e-mail correspondence with a member of Parliament.

But perhaps the most sensational revelation from the inquiry thus far - it still has another month to go - was an eerily prescient remark by Kelly himself, made to a diplomat earlier this year, that if Britain went to war with Iraq he would be found "dead in the woods."

The revelation produced gasps in the hearing chamber and bafflement among observers. Was there more to Kelly than met the eye? The scientist was an expert on Iraq's weapons and had visited the country many times. Was he under threat or at risk in some way?

Most have discounted such possibilities. Kelly was derided by one Downing Street aide as a "Walter Mitty" character, a fantasist who imagines himself to be at the center of grand intrigues and dark scheming. The reference was unfortunate and produced an apology from the aide, but the sentiment is not dissipating. The scientist was, after all, an ordinary civil servant who apparently offered dangerous and unsubstantiated conjecture that went way beyond his own brief.

"Dr. Kelly is unfortunately going to come out badly," says Dr. Baker. "The Walter Mitty tag will stay hanging in the air, and from what the inquiry has heard so far, he was a loose talker."

And Blair?

"Unless something extra comes out," says Baker, "the hysteria may have damaged him, but the inquiry hasn't hurt him at all."

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