Enduring freedom begins October 7, 2001
Iraq Invasion begins March 19, 2003
So basically one and change years apart.
Peak number of troops in Iraq was around 180,000, spiked in 2003
Peak number of troops in Afghanistan was around 100,000, spiked in 2011
So my version of events roughly is, 2001 - roughly 1.300 US soldiers arrive in Afghanistan. US drums up the war economy (military industrial complex). US invades Iraq. Once thats done, you still have many soldiers you dont know what to do with - so roughly half of them go to Afghanistan as well.
Afghanistan is of strategic importance to russian border security, and for pretty much nothing else.
And how the effort to hunt down taliban in Afghanistan went, I pretty much described. Yes, you hunted 'some thing' in Afghanistan. Created more taliban as a result. And the Bin Laden ultimately was in another castle.
Now - if you only were after Bin Laden, you track him via intelligence means. Why do you drum up a war economy for that purpose? Also the US would never have done that for Afghanistan alone. It wouldnt have payed financially. So once you've got your big army (recruitment efforts), you also need to do something with it that makes sense - for someone. Otherwise, empty spending.
edit: Troop numbers in Afghanistan (over time):
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/i...vasion-2020-taliban-deal-200229142658305.html
edit: Sorry for Iraq/n typos, corrected where possible.
edit2: While 9/11 no doubt was a traumatic event for the US as a whole, and something unimaginable at the time (attack on your soil), ultimately 3000 people died (equivalent to people dying in the US from falling down stairs each year), and maybe even more people as a result of the emergency/cleanup efforts (asbestos). If as a result you drum up an active army of 180.000 US troops that can be deployed in war efforts all over the world, you have to do something with them that makes more than just 'public relations'/'symbolic' sense. Or you simply don't do it. During the entire process, there should be enough people to tell whoever is in charge, that invading Afghanistan with an army of 100.000 makes exactly no sense.
The whole thing has its own dynamic, and gets its own entire internal logic. And Afghanistan didn't feature in it very prominently.
Hence - also this measly report for when war comes to an end in Afghanistan (that there was no 'we win' narrative to be had also didn't help).
Remember 'mission accomplished' (end of major combat operations in Iraq) in comparison.
edit 3: There even is a version of this, where Bin Ladens terrorism efforts worked. As a result (not as a direct result, but as a result of what followed), the US became more isolationist, less interested in playing world police, less interested in the middle east. Weary of war. Now Bin Laden was pretty much a weird psycho, and was used by local interests to fork over family money - which is not exactly a great strategic mind in action. And there were a boatload of other factors that are more directly responsible for the US retraction from the middle east, as a nation happening. So the correlation is small. But there is an internal logic to terrorism, and it always baits overreaction on part of a government, that can not achieve what people (in terror) wan't them to. Terrorism is about trying to provoke system change. So it creates loose/loose scenarios for governments. Luckily the US also had Iraq and they 'won' there.