FOR the first time in this phoney war which has lasted for months, the international community has been presented with real evidence against Saddam Hussein.

Some of it, as Colin Powell admitted, is open to interpretation; some of it, as Tony Blair suggested when referring to the links between al Qaida and Iraq, is a little too much like a red herring to be taken seriously.

But at last there is photographic evidence of Saddam's devious deceit. This is a step forward.

However, we wonder if the US has not also been slightly devious: its satellites seem to have spent days filming Saddam's trucks thwarting weapons inspectors by emptying suspicious factories prior to inspections. This film is now presented as evidence of Saddam's deviousness - which it is - but if the prime concern were the destruction of whatever was inside those factories, the inspectors would have been tipped off so they could rush round before the lorries had time to leave.

Still, though, the evidence appears compelling that Saddam is in material breach of Resolution 1441. It must now be up to the United Nations to make its mind up what it wants to do next - the United States cannot be allowed to make the decisions on its own.

It may yet be that the UN does not believe that a vast military onslaught is, at the present time, the only way to crack this particular nut. The UN will know that in recent conflicts in which sophisticated US weaponry has been employed there has been appalling collateral damage - there was the Chinese embassy in the Balkans and the carnage of the wedding party in Afghanistan.

When it makes its judgement, the UN will have to decide whether Saddam's material breach warrants explosive retribution which will kill Iraqi innocents. It may like to consider the alternative suggested yesterday by the French: a tripling of the size of the inspections team so that Iraq is swamped and so that Saddam doesn't have the room to mess it around.

With the impressive array of force amassed by Messrs Bush and Blair to enforce the seriousness of the situation, this could not be seen as lily-livered appeasement.

War must be the very last option - and it must be up to the United Nations to decide when, and if, that war is waged.