The only thing I would add would be pamphlets dropped on the area, for those who can read, and radio "bombardment" in Arabic announcing the terms and conditions 24/7, with a countdown of days. ("You have 5 more days to leave X. Please observe the following conditions.") That way no one can say they missed it, and be believed. There will always be the illiterate deaf, but I would hope someone would tell them the news. Is there television in Fallujah? Maybe some of the pamphlets could be in symbols.

Yeah, I know, but it's my business to think about the illiterate deaf, and other assorted exotic combinations of disabilities.

Do they get to take things with them? If I were leaving my family home under duress, and I had reasonable fears that it would be bombed, I would want to take things along. I mean, like my piano. All that kind of stuff would have to be dealt with too.

There's a place between incautious and humanitarian. The soldiers who waved a fake medical emergency through, all those many months ago, practiced kindness but not caution. I believe kindness is the impulse among most of the American military when not being shot at, a valuable one to keep. The Iraqis, as suspicious as they are (after decades under Saddam, wouldn't you be?), need to see the kindness themselves. The caution can be made into procedures and policies, orders to be obeyed and ways to deal that put a structure on kindness. That structure doesn't say no, but it does say, not yet.