Stephen L. Rich -- Thanks for your explanation. I still don't agree that your scenario is all that plausible, or that it would have achieved the desired effect even if it could have been implemented as you suggest. Covert operations have their place, and as I said before I am confident that the US government's current plan involves both overt and covert operations. But I think a lot of the assumptions in your scenario don't really stand up to close scrutiny.

For one, there's the assumption that covert means can be relied upon to undermine and destroy a large network that itself includes both conventional and covert forces. For another, there's the assumption that we would have gotten extensive support from other governments for a wholly covert operation. For a third, there's your assumption that we would have been able to rely upon the good will of other regional ("Arab") governments, and upon their willingness and ability to break up these networks on their own. Put all these assumptions togehter, add in the fact that covert operations are rarely as neat and tidy as the spy books make it appear, recognize that the down side of a covert operation failure could be truly horrendous, and you're left with a pretty questionable enterprise, as far as I can see.

Bottom line for me: we were attacked in a large-scale operation (a small number of operatives, but well-planned and with a large impact), and we needed to go after the people who did it to try to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Like anyone else, we tried to arrange the contest to play to our strengths; we do have the world's best military, after all. And we needed to make sure the world knew what we were doing. We're not done -- not by a long shot -- and our prosecution of this war has not been flawless, but so far we have done better than was predicted on the military front. I hope that our diplomatic efforts, and our covert operations, will ultimately meet with equal success.