" The U.S. military did the opposite, trying to avoid civilian casualties in order to avoid conflict with the Iraqi public. "

You seem to be taking the State Dept. line at face value. What's your evidence? Why do you assume Putin is targeting civilian populations but that Bush didn't?

All else being equal, if we assume both governments are dishonest about their intent and methods, then the only test of whether civilian populations were targeted is the effect, i.e. number of civilians killed.

As I've already pointed out, the US military killed eight times as many civilians in the first 12 days as Russia has in the same period. You attempted to side-step this by pointing out (again without evidence) that most Iraqi civilians were killed by other Iraqis. We're not talking about the civil war. We're talking about the invasion. Don't try to weasel out of it.

The official US line, which you accept without question, is that these initial strikes in densely populated areas were intended to "decapitate the regime" and hit "high-value targets" like "Chemical Ali," and that the value of the targets was worth the risk of "collateral damage." And not a single one of these high-value targets was hit, which they chalked up to "bad intel."

How—aside from the crocodile tears of the generals and the protestations of US officials—do you know that the intent wasn't to break the will of the Iraqi people? Do you have some sort of crystal ball that lets you see into their hearts? Access to classified documents?

The US did actually destroy civilian infrastructure, like power plants that were used to power water treatment facilities, leading to the reemergence of long-eradicated diseases like cholera. What is your evidence that this wasn't an intentional tactic to break the will the of the Iraqi people?