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Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, cited this lack of knowledge as one of the lessons that had been learnt during the conflict against Slobodan Milosevic. He was giving evidence to the Commons defence committee, which also heard that Britain came within a month of calling out its reserve troops. "The one thing I learnt was just how much cloud and bad weather there was in Kosovo," Mr Tebbit told the MPs.

He acknowledged that the conditions that forced Nato to cancel many of its bombing missions could have been predicted. "But the fact is that we were surprised that it was only 21, 22, or 23 days out of 78 when it was absolutely clear." The weather made it difficult for the RAF to use its laser-guided bombs, Mr Tebbit went on. "I won't pretend that that was not a frustration for the Alliance as a whole."

Several MPs suggested that Nato should have explicitly threatened a land invasion when the bombing campaign started, and that its failure to do so probably encouraged Milosevic. Gen Sir Charles Guthrie, the Chief of Defence Staff, made it clear that he would have liked the threat of a ground invasion to have been on the table "from before the first bomb was dropped" in order to "worry" the Serb leader. However, in the face of the reluctance of other members of the 19-nation Alliance, they could not escalate the threat without jeopardising Nato solidarity.

Sir Charles also said that Britain had come within about a month of calling out its reserve troops to take part in a land invasion. It was envisaged that up to 14,000 Territorial Army soldiers would be mobilised as part of a 50,000-strong British contingent.