It states the failure to stop the looting boiled down to a lack of will to use deadly force. It's one thing to kill enemy soldiers its another to kill looters not threatening to you when the city is still not under control. When you want to establish yourselves as liberators and rebuilders rather than conquerers use of deadly force should be used as little as possible. There is also the tactical issue of turning the population against you. I'd have to agree that if the choice was between killing more Iraqi's and stopping the looting they made the right choice.

I'm not sure that was the only choice though. Whatever happened to shooting to disable and warning shot's? Is shooting to disable an unlikely option with the weapons the troups had? Were they afraid that any initiation of weapon use would result in situations requiring deadly force? It was a tough choice and I feel less critical of the failure after reading that article. They may have made the wrong choice, but it wasn't a thoughtless or uncaring one.

Regards,
Mark