Kudos to the Bush administration for its somber response to the capture of Saddam Hussein on Saturday. No celebratory announcements, no backslapping, just a nod to the troops and an admission that the mission in Iraq will continue to be difficult. It was the right tone.

But to paint Hussein's capture as a victory in the war on terrorism is missing the point. The war in Iraq was never about terrorism - it was about finishing the work of a previous administration, accomplishing a dream of the neo-cons who spent the 1990s ensconced in think tanks, planning a war that needed only a rallying cry, like phantom weapons of mass destruction or an artificial association with 9/11. It was also about moving on from a separate war - the one in Afghanistan - that was not quite turning out as planned. Foreign terrorists are in Iraq because of Bush's invasion, not the other way around.