This is a terrible thing if indeed the article is accurate. But the guy fired out the window, what were the soldiers supposed to do?
Firing through the door is a no no unless you are being fired at through the door. That's why we train for such things. They could have gotten away with tossing a frag or a 40mm through the window. It's like last night here. We had 3 RPGs fired at us and assorted small arms - took out a humvee, another repair for the tax payers - yet we didn't maneuver and fire blindly. We returned fire to the spot from which it came. I know it sounds strange, but that's allowed. There is no way those guys had positive ID form inside the house. I've been in enough of these houses. Things don't always line up. They could have gotten away with breaching the door - shotgun, or if they had engineer support, det cord. Our room clearing techniques have changed since WWII. We are closer to a spec ops method than the old way of tossing in a frag or firing through a door.

These Fedayeen were supposed to be cold-blooded killers. Did he just turn over a new leaf? "I am done torturing, I think I will build houses now." He was a Fedayeen, even his relatives said so. That is like saying, "I was a killer for the mafia, but I quit and became a bread salesman."
You don't have to tell me about the Fedayeen. IT is possible that he signed "the paper" in which he disavows the Ba'ath party, blah blah, blah. Yeah, I don't buy it either, but we have a shit load of these guys working for us as Facility Protection Security Forces. They wear a grey T-shirt with FPSF on it and carry an SKS. Most are former Fedayeen - tats and all. The only ones we are really interested in are the officers these days.

I feel bad for these people I really do, but the stress level for the troops must be unbelievable. So do the math, ex-fedayeen fires on troops with a shotgun. Hmm, sounds like a pretty reasonable response to me. I wonder how many more of these incidents have similiar circumstances.[/QUOTE]
What we don't know is the purpose of the mission. If it was a "capture or kill", then by all means, they acted appropriately. From the way the article sounded, it was simply a search.