They kept yelling for him to "apologize," and now he's done so - but for mistakes, not for the whole idea. Mistakes were made. We weren't harsh enough, basically, and handled too many things (mosques, for example) with kid gloves. This encouraged the terrorists.
We also didn't realize how much we would be undermined domestically by the press and the Dems, who made us look weak rather than merciful and basically encouraged the terrorists by attacking Bush rather than the terrorists and their supporting countries.
But it's a long way from acknowledging mistakes and saying the whole thing was wrong. And obviously, now that he has said this, the Dems can't complain about his taking a totally different tack and launching the all-out fight as we should have done in the first place. (Which is what I HOPE he is going to do.)
"We also didn't realize how much we would be undermined domestically by the press"
After Vietnam, we should have. One of Bush's major flaws is that he isn't a student of history.