The image put on show at the Ministry of Defence yesterday to prove the effectiveness of the Iraqi bombing was pin-sharp and instantly recognisable, but had clearly been doctored, as war propaganda so often is. Tony Blair was wearing make-up.

It may have been to mask the facial ravages of four sleepless nights spent fretting over his first war. On the other hand, he had arrived fresh from being interviewed by Sir David Frost. Either way, it hid the care lines to somewhat greater effect than the Prime Minister's words.

Other images were much less distinct. General Sir Charles Guthrie, Chief of the Defence Staff, showed his war snaps, consisting of three two-second video clips purporting to show British bombs hitting important targets with chilling precision.

One looked remarkably like a raid on the surface of the Moon, and to the untutored eye the others might just as well have been staged on Salisbury Plain.

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They had been taken, an earnest squadron leader explained, with a thermal imaging camera in the Tornado Laser Designator Pod. Oh well, that explains it, then; but what we really wanted was an Instamatic print, fresh from Boots' photo counter, of Saddam cowering under his dining-room table.

But it was really Tony's show, with Robin Cook and George Robertson, dressed identically to their leader in dark suits, white shirts and restrained ties, sitting as mute makeweights on the rostrum as he held centre stage.

George was allowed a brief mention of HMS Invincible, and Robin squeezed in a brief word about humanitarian aid, while General Guthrie was allowed to reel off figures of sorties flown and targets hit, accompanied by slightly vague maps. More surprisingly, Tony made almost no mention of the Americans, and virtually none of the other woes besetting their commander-in-chief, except to say in reply to a question that any suggestion of interlinked timing was offensive both to himself and Mr Clinton.

The general chipped in to say he had been planning the raid for months.

In describing the military operation and its outcome, the Prime Minister adopted the more-in-sorrow-than-anger tone of a junior schoolmaster telling morning assembly that the very, very bad boy indeed in the lower fourth had had a sharp, painful caning.

The trousers had been taken down and the bottom smacked very accurately and extremely hard exactly as planned, much harder than in previous punishments.

Military types like to talk of "degrading" Saddam's weapons capability but yesterday's buzzword was "containment"; the beast had been put back securely in his cage, and his evil plans had been set back by several years.

There was not a single use of the word "victory", only "success", within the strictly limited context of the four-day bombing operation.

Blair is not Thatcher; there was no hint of rejoicing in his performance yesterday, beyond relief at the total absence of British and American casualties.

However, compared with his predecessor's military adventure in the South Atlantic, the long-term outcome of Blair's Raid is infinitely less certain, and when wider matters were raised he appeared infinitely less confident.

He had no effective response to the threat that Russia and China might unilaterally end sanctions against Iraq, beyond suggesting lamely that it would not necessarily affect Britain's ability to keep its sanctions up. And, by participating in the latest action, had he not committed himself to a course that would require him to take military action again and again in future, as the beast once again wriggled through the bars of his cage? The alternative of doing nothing, Tony averred, would have left us with no credibility. He did not say with whom.

He was at pains, as ever, to stress that airstrikes were not directed at the Iraqi people, or even at its conscript army. Saddam, he said, was able to buy as much food and medicine as he wanted, even if he chose not to do so.

He suggested, without total conviction, that the means of getting humanitarian aid to those in Iraq who really needed it might be in need of improvement.

Tony's first war has been inconclusive, remains unfinished, and may yet prove hugely counter-productive even if, of the three leading participants, he is the only one who yesterday could dust himself down and consider himself relatively unscathed.

The others are suffering from either a crippled air-defence system or a crippled presidency.

Nonetheless, the prime ministerial panstick may have been there to hide the worry lines of what happens next.

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