I may be wrong, but I was pretty sure that al-Qaeda was never a big "operations organization" in and of itself. It supplied financing and logistics to a myriad of islamist groups. That is why you hear "groups with links to al-Qaeda". If the leadership is bottled up, and the flow of its money stopped, its effectiveness is nill. It seems lately, that the media has transformed al-Qaeda into a Hamas type organization, that is, an organization with foot soldiers. I believe OBL is bottled up and that we are fighting the individual islamist organizations (also a bunch of Baathist).
agreed
Al Queda itself just works for the Golden Chain, a group of wealthy Muslims, mostly Saudi.
Think of the Golden Chain as finance and senior management, setting long-term goals. Osama is middle-management. He takes the funding and divides it among operational units, and provides coordination.
The point here is that as long as the Golden Chain is politically untouchable, they can just recruit another Osama.