good question. And one i am not qualified to answer. I'm not too hot on current military tactics i'm afraid, i suppose maybe this is one of those times when some sort of insider espionage would have been able to winkle the head bastards out before they got wind and went to ground. This action though, would not have appeased the thundering masses who wanted to see that something was being done.
On the other hand, maybe that wouldn't have been right, as i say i am no contemporary military tactitian, but as far as i see there have been several dozen bombing campaigns in the last century and they have none of them done much damage to the "enemy". I realise you may not agree with me, and i also realise that you will have more of an understanding of the tactics and so on, but i just think that it would be nice if war was not based so much on economics, greed and public opinion, but actually on a genuine will to end it all as quick and clean as possible. Bombing is almost an admission that you would rather dig in than get it all over with, in my opinion.