First of all, the United States wouldn't need to shoot down American commercial satellites, such as Space Imaging's IKONOS, because the government already has "shutter control" over them—which means it can prohibit the sale of images on grounds of national security. Second, if the satellites were non-American, then, as John Pike of globalsecurity.org has suggested, it might be very hard to know who they were selling their images to. Third, since such satellites might be selling images to various parties, shooting them down could have unforeseen bad consequences. Fourth, shooting them down would antagonize the satellite's country of origin. If you imagine some future dust-up with Iraq and you imagine that Iraq is buying images from a Russia that is otherwise not involved in the war, then shooting down the Russian satellite could, as Pike has put it, "move Russia out of the neutral column."