I would argue that in the early nineties we could have eliminated the Eurasian ruffe from the Great Lakes if we had taken the same sort of action. I don't want to go into the details of that, and don't want to say “dithering”, but that's the word that came to mind. By the time they finally decided it was a problem and should be stopped, it was too late.
On April 25th, 2012. See this statement in context.