I'm no expert on the particulars, so I'll defer to those who are, but I'm not convinced that it didn't have to be a disaster. I can certainly conceive of it going much worse. Not to minimize things, but more Americans died in the Blackhawk down incident.

We had a wolf by the ears and came away bleeding. Not exactly shocking.

And as for bungling, which US president in memory would have reached in with direct control and prevented those suicide bombings?