WASHINGTON D.C. — This week, U.S. Senators Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), joined by 23 other colleagues, are placing additional pressure on the Department of Defense to release its findings on the February bombing of an elementary school in Iran. The attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab reportedly killed around 120 children and roughly 175 people overall, making it the deadliest civilian casualty event tied to U.S. military action in decades.
In a letter sent to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper, the senators urged the Pentagon to complete its investigation into the strike and publicly release its findings. The probe was reportedly turned in back in April but has remained under review by top military officials since then. The senators also asked the Department to give Congress a concrete plan for preventing a similar tragedy from happening again.
“More than four months after the strike, and after the reported submission of the investigation in April, Congress and the American people still have not received the Department’s investigation and findings,” the senators wrote. “There is no justification for withholding an unclassified accounting of what happened, what went wrong, and what the Department is doing to prevent recurrence.”
“These reported issues, if accurate, raise deeply troubling questions about the integrity of U.S. target development, the adequacy of target validation and vetting procedures, the interoperability of intelligence and targeting databases, the timeliness and reliability of intelligence used for lethal targeting, and the Department’s implementation of civilian harm mitigation policies,” the senators wrote. “They also raise urgent questions about whether the Department has sufficient targeting personnel, training, accountability mechanisms, and technical safeguards to support large-scale conventional operations.
The senators concluded, “The United States military has a legal and moral obligation to take all feasible precautions to prevent civilian harm. 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.”
In addition to Senator Slotkin (D-MI), the letter was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Senator Gillibrand (D-NY), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Edward Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
Read the letter to Secretary Hegseth here.
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