This story was originally published by ProPublica.
by Hannah Allam and Megan Rose, ProPublica
Ten Democratic lawmakers told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a letter Sunday that his gutting of a program focused on protecting civilians is a leadership failure that imperils service members and erodes the military’s moral standing.
Led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the joint letter echoed concerns raised by a recent Defense Department inspector general report that described civilian protection efforts as largely “inactive.” Lawmakers also cited reporting by ProPublica and other news outlets in pushing to preserve the framework known as civilian harm mitigation and response, or CHMR.
“The Trump administration — potentially in violation of federal law — has defunded and impeded civilian protection efforts,” the lawmakers asserted.
A Pentagon spokesperson declined to answer questions from ProPublica, noting: “As with all congressional correspondence, the Department will respond directly to the authors.”
The retreat from civilian protection drew global attention in February when an apparent U.S. strike killed dozens of children and teachers at a school on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran — an incident the Pentagon says is under investigation.
Beyond those deaths, conflict monitoring groups have recorded a surge in reports of civilian casualties, most notably in Somalia and Yemen, which have both seen a dramatic increase in U.S. strikes under the second Trump administration.
The harm mitigation leadership, housed in a specialized Civilian Protection Center of Excellence mandated by Congress in 2022, aimed to reduce the number of civilian casualties of U.S. military operations, a problem that has spanned administrations in the post-9/11 “forever wars.”
The program was still being rolled out when momentum halted under Hegseth. In the spring of 2025, as U.S. operations in Yemen reportedly killed dozens of civilians, the Defense Department was scrapping the CHMR mission as out of step with Hegseth’s “lethality” doctrine, according to current and former staffers.
By the time of the Iran school strike, current and former personnel told ProPublica, the protection mission had been slashed by about 90%, leaving just a handful of staffers to monitor civilian harm issues even as the Defense Department accelerated the strike tempo across swaths of Africa and the Middle East.
“The Trump administration’s military adventurism overseas, combined with its obvious disregard for civilians, do not make the American people or our service members safer,” the 10 Democrats said in their letter to Hegseth. Three signees are military veterans: Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado.
The letter ended with 20 questions the lawmakers want answered by July 9, including requests for the latest CHMR staffing and funding numbers, and an explanation for why the department wasn’t cooperative with the inspector general’s inquiry.
Within days of the strike on the elementary school adjacent to an Iranian military compound in Minab, open-source investigative outlets surfaced video showing a U.S.-made Tomahawk missile likely was responsible. Nearly five months later, the Trump administration has yet to explain what happened.
Annie Shiel, U.S. director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said congressional support is “critical” at a moment when the CHMR mission hangs in the balance. “The department is violating U.S. laws and policies that have grown out of hard-learned lessons from past wars and garnered bipartisan support across multiple administrations,” Shiel said.
Plan Sprung From Civilian Deaths
During the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, a missile strike in Kabul killed an aid worker and nine of his relatives, including seven children. That incident, along with a New York Times investigation into deaths from U.S. airstrikes, spurred the adoption of the civilian harm mitigation and response action plan in 2022.
Now that mission is in limbo, and, according to the May inspector general’s report, defense leadership “withheld access” to department tools that track the program’s implementation. “You are in violation of the law right now on civilian harm,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll at a hearing in May.
The new letter comes as critics, including some Republicans and veteran commanders, grow increasingly vocal about Hegseth’s attempts to overhaul the Department of Defense, which the Trump administration refers to as the Department of War.
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