A former Tory defence spokesman has branded David Cameron's decision to back an immediate inquiry into the Iraq conflict as "absolutely crazy".
Quentin Davies, who served as a shadow minister under William Hague, said he was "quite incredulous" when he heard the party was supporting a Commons motion tabled by Scottish and Welsh nationalists this week.
The Conservatives - who strongly supported the military action against Saddam Hussein - said they were voting for the motion in order to make the Government hold a public probe within a year.
The call was eventually defeated by 25 votes, despite 12 Labour MPs rebelling and many others abstaining.
Mr Davies told BBC Radio 4's The Week at Westminster he was "amazed" and "sorry" at the Tory leadership's stance.
"What the resolution said was that there should be an inquiry now with an open, public inquiry conducted by seven privy councillors into a military operation that's still going on.
"I think that's an absolutely crazy idea and I can't understand that anybody responsibly would have wanted to go for it. Why we did that I don't know ... I didn't vote for it but most of the party did."
He added: "It's quite unprecedented, of course, in any kind of military operation to have a public inquiry like that while things are going on.
"Either it's a full and frank inquiry or it's not. If it is, then you're signalling to the enemy all your plans and all your weaknesses, and that can't make any sense at all.
"I think that soldiers serving out there in these very difficult conditions would have been just as amazed as I was."
