Keeping civilian casualties low is *an* appropriate metric, but not *the* only one. Effects Based Operations is a doctrine that explicitly takes into account the idea that we may have many objectives, some of them potentially in conflict with one another. The question of metrics for assessing progress on each task is explicitly addressed in EBO planning and in performing those assessments.

Keeping casualties low is in tension with other key metrics such as reducing the level of destabilizing attacks on troops and Iraqi leaders, identifying and rooting out insurgents and their support base and moving forward with political and economic restructuring. It's a mistake to chose one indirect measure and raise it above these others as the sole measure of success.

Ah, but I didn't advocate making it the *only* measure. I'd just like it if it were *one* of them, which it currently is not.

Gotta disagree is isn't one of the measures of effectiveness. It clearly has been and is.

So why is it that we're being told that the U.S. military isn't tracking casualties? If you're not tracking something, it's rather difficult to argue you're using it as a measure of effectiveness.