First of all, I can't find anything that shows me that any rules wer ctually broken, except the word of the enemy.
Second, as Rush always says, in war, the aggressor sets the rules. We have to be aggressive in going after these guys. Unfortunately, that means a lot of civilians are going to get caught in the crossfire. We've got to stop worrying about that, or we won't be able to win the war.
I would follow Col. Hunt's suggestion and take some of our artillery out of there -- it only attracts IEDs -- and replace it with Special Forces. Maybe put a Special Forces guy in charge.
I'd go afte rthe Mahdi Army -- al-Sadr and his boys. Wipe them out. In colin Powell's phrase, "First we cut tehm off, then we kill them." I'd back as many of hte terrorists as I can into the Triangle of Death, where tehy are congregating anyway, and then bomb it. Heavily. Then I'd bomb it again.
Park some ships nearby and have them ready to fire whenever needed.
And I would tell our troops to do their job and not worry too much about the collateral damage. if we tell tehm they can't do their jobs, we cripple the effort. At that point, we may as well come home.
I'm afraid this is turninginto Johnson and McNamara.
I think you are a bit off base making the vietnam type comparison. The casualties are very sad but relatively low for a war. I think our troops and commanders are doing a very awesome job; almost completely overhauling a dictatorship and installing a democracy with the vast majority much better off. I know you are right about taking out the enemy as quick as possible but this is a counrty that is free with terrorist mixed into the population. It's not like world war two where we had to take out the whole country of Germany before they would give up. I'm no military person but that's just the way I see it.