British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair and his country's spy chiefs are braced for a political storm today, following publication of the Butler report on the government's use of intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
However, the mood inside 10 Downing Street last night was said to be calm, amid indications that Lord Butler's inquiry will stop short of demanding the high-profile resignations of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, or the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the next head of MI6, Mr John Scarlett.
Serious criticisms are expected to be levelled at key players in government and the intelligence world. However, ITV has reported that Lord Butler's inquiry team will specifically plead that Mr Scarlett should not be made a scapegoat.
Mr Scarlett told last year's Hutton Inquiry that the JIC had "ownership" of the Blair government's controversial dossier on Iraq's weapons. Mr Blair has already been criticised for naming Mr Scarlett to succeed Sir Richard Dearglove as head of MI6 next month before hearing Lord Butler's conclusions.
However, as Lord Butler handed Mr Blair his advance copy of the report yesterday, Downing Street said Mr Scarlett had the prime minister's "full confidence".
The risk for Number 10 is that any findings of "a collective failure" could see questions about the political judgment to go to war rebound directly on Mr Blair.
The Liberal Democrat leader Mr Charles Kennedy has echoed former foreign secretary Mr Robin Cook's demand that Mr Blair should apologise for taking Britain to war on a false prospectus.
However, a defiant Mr Blair signalled last night he felt he had nothing to apologise for.
At a news conference with the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Mr Blair was asked if he had been presented with "duff" intelligence about Iraq's weaponry and been made to look foolish before the world. He told reporters: "I don't accept that at all I feel very much as I did 18 months ago. I think it is very difficult to look at Iraq today, to look at Iraq under Saddam, and say we would be better off, the world would be safer, we would be more secure, if Saddam was still in charge of Iraq."
Mr Blair later refused to answer a question on whether he had ever considered resigning over the war. He told reporters: "I tell you what I would like to do is get on with the job in hand."