https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.htm https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.htm > For the most part, the collateral damage assessment process for

https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.htm https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.htm > For the most part, the collateral damage assessment process for the air war in Iraq worked well, especially with respect to preplanned targets. Human Rights Watch’s month-long investigation in Iraq found that, in most cases, aerial bombardment resulted in minimal adverse effects to the civilian population. > Human Rights Watch recommends that if the United States bombs populated areas, it should: Complete a collateral damage estimate in advance and balance this against the expected direct and concrete military advantage of the attack. Use the smallest effective precision munitions to limit civilian harm. Carry out a bomb damage assessment as soon as possible after the attack and apply immediate lessons learned. The United States has committed itself to all these steps, but it needs to implement them more consistently. Human Rights Watch also recommends that the United States abandon aerial attacks on leadership targets until the targeting and intelligence failures have been corrected. In particular, Strikes should not be based solely on satellite phone intercepts. There should be no strikes in densely populated areas unless the intelligence is considered highly reliable. You can argue all you want about justification of wars. I'm not going to because frankly that's not the point and it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant because we're going to go to war as a species. It's a fact of life. What's relevant is if more precise targeting of strikes equates to less collateral damage, or as I prefer being more directly descriptive, innocent civilian deaths, which is appears to be true.