The solitary purpose of he Hutton Inquiry was to keep the Blair Government from winding up in the ash heap. In that regard it was modestly successful, at least for the time being. Anything less than a clean slate for Blair would have meant disaster for him and his tenuous grip on power.

Hutton did not disappoint. His ruling found the Prime Minister innocent on all counts and suggested he was the victim of unprofessional reporting and "unfounded" accusations on the part of the BBC.

Blair's exoneration seems to have lifted his spirits, though it has not had any measurable affect on public opinion. If the recent polls are accurate, the Prime Minister's popularity is just inches above the bottom of the septic tank.

Blair has claimed throughout the inquiry that he never intentionally misled the British public. In view of the almost daily revelations, including the David Kay Report, (which states that there "probably never were any weapons during the 1990s") Blair's protestations seem rather suspect.

Even before the war, British Intelligence was hard at work trying to soften public opinion to the idea of taking out Saddam. We know from reports in the London Observer and from ex Iraqi Weapons Inspector, Scott Ritter, that British Intelligence, M-16, was involved from 1998 in Operation Mass Appeal, a project whose main focus was to spread unverifiable information about Saddam's alleged weapons in the foreign press. That way, English and American newspapers would glean the stories from the targeted countries, and run them back at home. It was a clever way to build a case against Saddam and his supposed weapons without anyone knowing it was part of an intelligence scam. This is how Blair and his cadres in M-16 hoped to turn public opinion against the Iraqi dictator.

So, how can the Prime Minister deny misleading the public when he was directly involved in an operation whose only purpose was public deception?

But the inquest didn't focus on the myriad inaccuracies of Blair's position anyway. Lord Hutton's mandate was to keep Tony's bacon out of the fire, and that's what he did.

If that wasn't Hutton's directive, then the testimony of leading British weapons expert form the Ministry of Defense, Brian Jones, would have probably changed his mind about Blair's culpability. Jones, who was head of the nuclear, biological and chemical branch of the Defense Intelligence Staff, was the most credible of the witnesses at the inquiry. He said that "not a single expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction." He went on to say that, although he and his colleagues tried, they "failed in their efforts to have their views reflected". He closed his statement by adding portentously that "he foresaw that no major stockpiles of WMD would be found in Iraq." He was right on all counts.

The Jones's testimony substantiates that Blair was stretching the truth from the get-go. He had all the experts at his disposal but chose to put together his dossier according to his own narrow policy objectives. Those objectives were to build a case for the war that Washington ordered.

Lord Hutton made no mention of Jones testimony in his findings, suggesting that the obfuscations that lead to war were not within his purview.

It's obvious from the polling data that the public not was duped by this charade.

The Hutton strategy of moving the shells became clear when he stated, "Accusations of fact impugning the integrity of others should not be made by the media."

Really?

This is an interesting way of striking out against the rights of the press and creating a credible diversion at the same time. It also seems reasonably consistent with Lord Hutton's pedigree, and the widely held belief among elites that the public is better off kept in the dark. Hutton's remark implies that the criticism of a public figure should take precedence over the rights of the people to know when they are being dragooned to war. The idea that "defamation" is a more significant crime than the fraudulent claims that lead a nation to war, gives us a snapshot of Hutton's maligned perspective.

Greg Dyke, the former Director General of the BBC, pointed out the error in Hutton's thinking when he opined, "Lord Hutton is arguing that the law doesn't allow us to report expert's views without independently corroborating them."

This is the central issue of Hutton's deliberations; is the media free to speculate on people or events without having concrete evidence to back up their observations? Or does the fact that some observations are "unfounded" necessarily preclude them from a public forum.

It's an important debate, but one that has already been resolved by the established principles of a free press.

Lord Hutton's ruling takes aim at these principles, while ignoring the more significant issue of Blair's dissembling.

The case has delivered a serious blow to the BBC. Its leadership has stepped down and the journalist at the center of the scandal (Andrew Gilligan) has been forced to resign. Now they face the prospect of former Prime Minister John Major, or someone else of equally conservative credentials, taking over as director and moving the company closer to privatization. (Which is the goal of the business community)

Many are wondering how the ruling will affect the BBC's editorial independence. Will it create an atmosphere of caution in presenting stories of a controversial nature? Or will they descend into the sycophantic posture that characterizes American media?

No one knows, yet.

As for Tony Blair, he's dodged a bullet for now but has entered that political netherworld where all his talents are being put to use just to insure his survival. He may have thought Hutton was a reprieve, but it's probably just a pause before the final act.

Now, the Tory leader, Michael Howard, seeing the blood in the water, is calling for Blair's resignation.

And, there's precious little help from Washington either, where Bush's "independent commission" has Blair scrambling to do the same, and looking like "the poodle" in the process. Once again, Blair is left to fend off critics who accuse him of getting his marching orders from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

There can be little doubt of that at this point.

The truth is, time is running out for the Prime Minister.