With 39 percent of respondents saying Blair should quit, the prime minister was grappling with his biggest crisis since he came to power in 1997.

Speaking in China as he continued an East Asia tour, the prime minister promised to "fully cooperate" with an independent judicial inquiry set up to establish the facts surrounding the death of weapons expert David Kelly.

Blair indicated he would testify in public if summoned to do so, adding: "Of course, there will be continuing debate as to whether the war was justified or not. I happen to believe it was."

Lord Brian Hutton, the man heading the inquiry into the death, announced in London he would sit "mostly in public" and report his findings as soon as possible.

Hutton insisted that only he would decide the scope of the investigation amid calls for a broad inquiry that would encompass the government's handling of the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq.

Blair's government has resisted calls from members of the governing Labour party as well as the opposition for a wide-ranging independent inquiry and into claims apparently made by Kelly that intelligence was "sexed up" to strengthen the case for war.

Charles Kennedy, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party, warned that "all hell would break loose" if the government sought to stop Hutton pursuing any lines of inquiry.

In an indication of the depth of Blair's troubles, a YouGov poll for the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper found that almost as many British voters -- 39 percent -- thought he should quit as the 41 percent who felt he should stay on.

The survey also showed that 59 percent of voters said they had a lower opinion of Blair following the Kelly affair.

"Tony Blair and his government's relationship with the British people, once respectful and even affectionate, would seem to have soured, possibly beyond redemption," the Daily Telegraph said.

The body of Kelly, a 59-year-old defense ministry consultant on biological weapons, was found near his home in Oxfordshire, west of London, on Friday, three days after he gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into the decision to go to war.

Coroner Nicholas Gardiner confirmed that Kelly bled to death after slashing his wrist.

Kelly's family said the weapons expert had been under "intolerable pressure" after being grilled over suspicions that he was the anonymous source of a BBC news report in May -- hotly denied by Downing Street -- that a key official dossier last September on Iraq had exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

While the government has taken most of the flak for Kelly's death, which has dominated the news in Britain in recent days, the BBC has also come under fire, with questions raised over the accuracy of its reporting.

After insisting for weeks that it needed to protect its sources, the public broadcaster confirmed for the first time Sunday that Kelly was the main source of its story in May.

A BBC statement issued on behalf of its defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, author of the contentious report, said: "I want to make it clear that I did not misquote or misrepresent Dr David Kelly."

Meanwhile, Clare Short, who resigned as Britain's international development secretary after claiming she was misled over Iraq by Blair, said attacks on the BBC were a "distraction from the main questions about how we got to war".

Blair was the staunchest ally of United States President George W. Bush in the military campaign launched in March, which the two leaders claimed was justified by Saddam Hussein's refusal to give up weapons of mass destruction.

Four months on, both Blair and Bush are suffering ongoing political fallout from the fact that no convincing proof had been uncovered that Baghdad had such weapons.

WAR.WIRE