Ironically, Europeans who (except the Brits, who act like Bush's lap dog) generally eschew sabre rattling have a considerably greater success in police action against the alQ than the sabre-rattling Bush administration. That suggest, imho, that police action is a much more effective means of pursuing alQ than a military-style operation.
I would also like to add that contrary to popular perceptions, the US capacity to address root causes of social problems that are root causes of terrorism are quite limited. For one thing, US has been unable to solve the root causes of domestic crime and violence - so its capacity to do it elsewhere should be seriously doubted. But more importantly, the solutions to these root causes cannot be socially-engineered from above, and they require long-term policies, and that seriously limits what any kind of US (or foreign) involvement can do.
As to war on Iraq - I do not rule a possibilily that it is a psych war to destabilize Saddam's regime and muster support of the US populace. But whether this is only a threat or a real thing, I think that the main target is not Saddam but EU and its growing influence in the region. That pisses me off, because I feel no allegiance to the US (it's just a dreadful place where I happen to live), but I have a much greater affinity to what Europe stands for (socially, politically, economically, and aesthetically). Besides, I loathe the arrogance of US politicians in general, of which Bush is a partiuclarly notorious case.
Wojtek