From following the events of the Iraq war (and the house-to-house fighting in Nasiriya) at the Command Post blog, it appears that the coalition forces are putting their own troops at risk in order to minimize Iraqi civilian casualties. And it's clear that Iraq is not concerned about following the Geneva conventions with any POWs it obtains.

If this is a new paradigm for warfare, it was probably first seen with the Israeli assault on the "militants" in Jenin last year.