...shot at checkpoints and roadstops by jumpy troops, mistaken for possible suicide bombers, bombed by aircraft with faulty targeting information. All those things have indeed happened.

But how often, really? The answer: not very often, in fact. And not nearly often enough to make the 150,000 U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq the leading scourge of Iraq's civilians. That dishonor goes, hands down, to the insurgents. Even one incident is bad, of course, and there have been many. But civilian killings by U.S. troops are not nearly as common as the critics of the war in Iraq would like us to believe. It has become an article of faith among them that American troops have been slaughtering Iraqi civilians indiscriminately, and that one of the consequences of the war has been an unconscionable loss of life among the civilian population. It just isn't true...