There are a lot of complexities to the situation and only so many hours in a day. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the administration had to deal with rescue efforts, trying to determine who did it, concern about future attacks, building international support, and a host of other issues.

As the weeks have rolled by, they're still trying to track down the financial links (as announced today), waging a war in a location where the logistics are terrible (no ports, no friendly bases for combat operations, very long supply lines, etc.), cleaning up the attack sites, and anthrax attacks.

Sure, we need to lock in international support while the goodwill exists. However, things take time. You don't suppose that it took time for the US, Great Britain, and the USSR to work out their working relationships after Pearl Harbor, do you?

We will need the international support and all the help we can get. However, it doesn't do much good if the support comes at a time when we can't use it. Having a bunch of Italian, French, German, British, and other nations' military personnel committed to the action before we're ready to act accomplishes nothing.

"Hurry up and wait" is a military fact of life. It's also pretty demoralizing and can cause troops to lose their fighting edge. Perhaps the best thing we can do in the near term is to get these countries to help with the planning and preparations for future military action while they make the best use of the time available to update their personnel's training and equipment as necessary.