1.   Civilian casualties must be avoided at all costs.

2.   And that was before the Defense Department adopted a strategy for fighting wars quickly and decisively to avoid casualties.

3.   As reasonably, it can be asked whether a demonstration test could have been carried out at an uninhabited site, avoiding civilian casualties.

4.   Avoiding casualties is a costly business.

5.   Avoiding civilian casualties among the Pashtun is important because neither the Pentagon nor the Northern Alliance wants to encourage Pashtuns in the south to unite about the Taliban.

6.   A major aim has been to take the war home to the Yugoslav leadership in Belgrade while avoiding civilian casualties.

7.   But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a Washington news briefing that the United States had been more careful to avoid civilian casualties than any war in history.

8.   But serious casualties were avoided, because residents had been ordered to bomb shelters overnight in anticipation of an attack.

9.   But the first priority of U.N. peacekeeping contingents is to avoid casualties among their own personnel.

10.   Clinton also said NATO forces at times have risked their own lives in a quest to avoid civilian casualties.