I understand your concerns, but everytime we attempt to restrain our firepower so we can have good PR with world opinion, US casualties rises, and if the war does not end quickly, US political will wavers. If a recalcitrant enemy cannot be destroyed and starved from an air campaign, then coming ashore and fighting with them point blank in built up areas is not acceptable based on our strengths and weaknesses. If you step back and look at the war, we started with 70 percent support for the President as our forces swept thru Iraq. Two and a half years later, 2000 KIA, the support for the President drops to 50 percent. The Iraqi guerilla forces are not the best trained and equipped compared to other US enemies such as Iran, who have built into their defense structure a well trained guerilla army to fight a US invasion. I recommend a History Channel series called Shoot Out which recreates close combat and ambushes in Iraq, and interviews with actual Marines and Army troops who survived such firefights. Common theme pertaining to ambushes, the enemy fired first, but since they were not well trained in marksmanship (weapons were issued last minute with no chance to zero sights or practice), the insurgents failed to kill the US troops in the kill zone. If the US troops do not dislodge the attackers, eventually they will suffer casualties as other nearby armed Iraqis join the fight and the attacker force swells in numbers. It takes time for the Iraqis to reach that critical size, by then heavy US forces or airpower arrives. My question is what if these insurgents were not so badly trained and equipped? What if most of them can shoot decently? The political dynamics and the casualty rate of this war would be different. If we invade Iran, I can assure you their territorial forces are better trained and better shooters because their forces go to the range with their assigned weapons, zero the sights and spend hundreds of hours on the range. Unlike the Iraqis, these forces will not need to spend hundreds of rounds and hours of time to inflict casualties on the US forces. They will hit hard quickly and disappear every day. If we had to invade and occupy Iran, we will reach 2000 KIA in less time than Iraq. To engage our enemies using tactics that expose our inability to sustain the poltical will for war by exposing our troops to close combat which nullifies our technological advantages and increases casualties, is like President Truman refusing to use the atomic bomb and allow the US to suffer 100,000 plus men to invade Japan in 1945. Unlike 1945, we have precise and brutal conventional weapons that can assure us low casualties as we defeat our enemies. Otherwise we will repeat Vietnam over and over and over again.
That said, U.S. policy and American politicians would court martial any general who did that and charge them with war crimes, and if the President or SofD did it, he would be facing impeachment and criminal charges.
That said, I'm also a supporter of using nuclear weapons, or at least building a next generation type that would, on the minimum, demoralize the enemy and break their wills, ironically, a President could use a nuke, and have no legal ramifications, but if he "starved" a city and allowed conditions in it to deteriorate severly, he would looking at war crimes (I never said laws make sense).
But to get back to facts, the US is undergoing project land warrior and project urban warrior, and the underlying themes behind them, are based around more urban combat, using new techniquies, new tactics, new technology and new training, there is however, no change in policy, which means, more urban combat will be the accepted norm.
It may not be wise, it may be wise, either way, its the policy now, and procurement and weapons development are reflecting that the US, is under the assumption that it will be engaging in urban warfare more often, and its pretty clear that aren't going to shell cities, and they definatly aren't going to surround them, and "starve" them out.