Next, what makes you think the civilians won't fight to defend their homes...this is not the Iraqi army dieing off on some fool hardy foreign adventure, this is the people's homes, personal property. Enough will fight to cause casualties and when it comes to urban warfare, casualties are the name of the game and taken land is counted in houses and at best blocks not kilometers.
As for a seige, they last way to long and make for very bad foreign press, not to mention the billions it would cost to surround and hold a seige on a city the size of Baghdad. Personally, this is the smartest thing Iraq can do. It's armies can't win straight out against the US but they can attempt to atrit the US as much as possible hoping that with enough body bags (as recent and not so recent US history proves in their favor) the US Congress and people will get turned off to the whole war...not to mention that prolonged street battles will be a drain on men and machines to the point that present US recruitment levels will not be enough, counting all the myrad US deployments, and a draft will eventually have to be implimented...further friction with the public.
Lastly you conveniently ignore the martyer syndrom. As it is, desperate peoples do desperate things, but when you throw in a religion that promises endless pleasures if you die in it's defense...watch out for a lot of suiciders coming your way.
But then again you ignore a few other military points: supply...expensive and a must...this is something on the other side of the world with no really friendly powers about to locally get the US what it needs, outside of maybe the oil. What does this mean? The longer a seige goes on, the more the local public opinion turns against the US. This will cause the other local powers to turn against the US and at best deny portage and at worst be out right hostile. The Persian Gulf is a long, narrow water way, easily cut off with mines and missiles. Turkey is a long mountainous road. If other countries attack: Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc...the war, troop needs and supply problems multipy almost as quickly as casualties.
I am not saying this can not be done, but you ignore tons of issues and over simplify into black and white the rest.
I don't think even the Iraqis believe that. Only their propaganda puppets here. And those people who parrot that absurd claim are partially responsible for those deaths. They're responsible by enabling Saddam to believe that he has enough supporters here to make his "I'm starving my people while building palaces and it's your fault" policy a success. Stavka2 appears to be one of those people.
This might have been true in the 10th century.
Care to join us in the 21st?
A minimal surveillance force is all that's necessary, it can be mobile and the backup forces no more costly than our current forces in the middle East.
I am sure glad that as a military strategist you're on the other side.