Indeed... there's speculation and there's
speculation...
In the cold light of day, nearly 4000 people died in one almost inconceivable event. Who did it and why is almost irrelevant.
That one day enabled someone to rewrite the constitution with a single signature and provided an excuse to allow Geoff Bush Jnr to unfinish what had been a clean and tidy Gulf War in '91 by trampling all over the Middle East.
The latest 'revelations' about CIA torture camps and secret flights are old news. it's just that we were all too wrapped up in the 9/11 fallout to care or notice. As for the legality of such behaviour, I guess it depends on your perspective. But what's done is done, and most of the myths have been dispelled systematically and openly and some truths have been exposed along the way.
But to your original question...

Had I been in GWBs shoes, would I have acted differently? Who knows. Perhaps he really was an NSA/CIA puppet told what to say at every turn, but his initial reaction on 9/11 spoke volumes. That much at least I would have done differently, and there would have been no WMD bullshit and certainly no Patriot Act. But would I have chased the people behind 9/11 into the ground? Damn right I would.