bsharporflat:

Yah, I think it should have been a quick special-ops procedure. Go in with a small specialized force, take out the training camps that trained the 9/11 guys and leave. Addresses the problem without creating worse ones.

I'm not sure that it's realistic to expect that teams of unsupported special operations forces could have just "taken out the training camps" or that doing so would have eliminated al Qaeda as an operational entity.