Well, Article 13 above does say, “Parties to the conflict are prohibited from placing or keeping members of the civilian population subject to their authority in or near military objectives.” The voluntary human shields are still subject to Iraqi authority. Note the distinction the article makes between “placing” and “keeping”. Iraq may not have placed the voluntary human shields there (even though they certainly encouraged and facilitated them), but they are allowing them to stay there.
So what’s your opinion on how Coalition forces should handle them?
My opinion is choice #3.
Choice 1. We can’t allow this practice to effect our choice of targets or our method of assaulting them, whether the shields are volunteers or not. Pulling our punches when attacking targets where human shields are present will encourage others to use human shields. I believe any unscrupulous enemy would rather his bunker be attacked by infantry with small arms weapons and flash grenades than by a tactical nuke - even if he still has no chance to escape, he has a chance to inflict more damage before he is taken down. We don’t want the enemy to be able to help his odds by endangering civilians.
If I’ve counted correctly, that’s three votes for #1 (attack the enemy with no regard for the human shields) and five votes for #3 (attack the enemy, but try not to harm the human shields), plus one vote for #1 and #3 based upon whether the human shields are there voluntarity.