Twenty-five Democratic senators, led by Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, are pressing the Trump administration to release by next week the findings of a Pentagon investigation into a Feb. 28 airstrike on a girls' school in Iran that killed 175 people, most of them children. The strike, which occurred on the first day of the ongoing Iran war, has become a flashpoint over civilian casualties and military accountability.
In a July 13 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Central Command head Adm. Brad Cooper, the lawmakers demanded the Defense Department provide Congress with the complete and unredacted investigation, along with a concrete plan to prevent a recurrence. “There is no justification for withholding an unclassified accounting of what happened, what went wrong, and what the Department is doing to prevent recurrence,” the senators wrote. The group includes Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
Preliminary findings from the military probe reportedly concluded that the U.S. was responsible for the Tomahawk missile strike. The target was a nearby Iranian base that had once extended onto the school grounds, but the area had since been designated as civilian, with a wall and bright paint marking it off. However, U.S. Central Command officers used outdated and unverified data from the Defense Intelligence Agency to set the target coordinates, according to The New York Times.
If the U.S. is found at fault, it would mark the Pentagon’s largest civilian casualty incident since the 1991 Gulf War, when a mistaken bombing of a shelter in Iraq killed at least 408 people. Human rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern that the Trump administration may try to suppress the report, especially after President Trump said last month that fault for the strike might never be determined. “I don’t know that they are ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault it was because there were missiles flying all over the place, and it’s horrible what happened, but there were missiles flying all over the place,” Trump told reporters on June 25.
The push for transparency comes amid broader tensions over the war, including debates about a proposed $350 billion defense boost and the reimposition of a Strait of Hormuz blockade. The senators’ demand also echoes earlier calls for accountability, such as the probe into alleged Hatch Act violations by a Trump ally.
During a Senate Armed Services hearing on Tuesday to consider Pentagon nominees, Gillibrand pressed acting comptroller Jules “Jay” Hurst III for details on how the school was selected as a target and how the bombing was executed. “One hundred and twenty children were killed, and we still don’t have a report on that,” she told Hurst, who is nominated to be the Defense Department’s comptroller. “It is essential that this department give this Congress the report of how that target was selected, why more recent data and information showing that it was clearly a girls’ school and no longer part of the military base that was next door.” Asked if he had seen the report, Hurst said he had not but regretted “the loss of any civilian life in any conflict.”
The senators’ letter requests the military “promptly finalize the investigation” by July 20 and provide Congress with the full, unredacted version, along with an unclassified version for public release. They also want the Pentagon to submit a prevention plan detailing corrective actions the Department of Defense will take to avoid such tragedies, and to brief lawmakers on the investigation and next steps.
“The United States military has a legal and moral obligation to take all feasible precautions to prevent civilian harm,” the senators wrote. “When a U.S. strike kills civilians, the Department owes Congress, the American people, and the victims’ families a clear accounting of what happened and a credible plan to prevent future failures.”
