It is at this point that Mr Cameron will need to muster some defences of his own, as the recriminations begin over how he got us into this mess in the first place. Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, makes no secret of his initial opposition to the campaign, and is said to have ordered his aides to prepare for the inevitable post-mortem examination in Whitehall by compiling a dossier of all the memos, letters and emails that were sent to Downing Street warning against an open-ended military commitment. Indeed, the overwhelming balance of the advice Mr Cameron received from both his military chiefs and senior officials was to stay clear. Again and again, he was warned that never in the 100-year history of air power had a campaign been won by bombing alone.