WHEN YOU HEAR CLAIMS OF “CIVILIAN DEATHS” keep in mind this post from the BBC Warblog:

One of the problems in the fighting in Umm Qasr has been that some of the conscript army appeared to surrender, but then disappeared.

It’s thought they then took off their uniforms, became civilians, but kept their guns. And so they were effectively acting as a guerrilla force which makes it very hard for conventional armies to fight that because they don’t want to risk killing civilians.

Soldiers out of uniform, of course, are war criminals. I eagerly await the European protest marches regarding this practice.

UPDATE: CNN is now reporting that Iraqis have executed American prisoners of war. I eagerly await the demonstrations over that, too.