WTF Is It Now?!?

Excessive force?
From MSNBC: The U.S. military is celebrating the deaths of Saddam’s sons. But some are questioning whether Uday and Qusay could—and should—have been taken alive.

"The whole operation was a cockup,” said a British intelligence officer. "There was no need to go after four lightly armed men with such overwhelming firepower. They would have been much more useful alive."

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, squirmed his way past that question repeatedly. It was, he said, the decision of the commander on the ground based on the circumstances and his judgment—”and it was the right decision.”

But a total of 200 heavily armed U.S. troops, backed by missiles, armored personnel carriers and helicopters? An officer at the scene made the improbable claim to a Newsweek reporter that tear gas might have hurt neighbors. As it was, there were no reported civilian casualties with the much heavier weaponry; the house, which belonged to a prominent local sheik, was set well away from others.

"Bollocks," said one former Special Forces soldier. "A SWAT team could have taken them. It didn’t need a company."