Outdated Intel Led to School Strike    03/12 06:22

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Outdated intelligence likely led to the United States 
carrying out a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that 
killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the 
conflict, according to a U.S. official and a second person briefed on findings 
of a preliminary U.S military investigation into the incident.

   The bombing of the school and its casualties involving children has become a 
focal point of the war, and if ultimately confirmed to be at the hands of the 
U.S., would also stand among the highest civilian casualty events caused by the 
American military operations in the last two decades.

   President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, later said he 
wasn't certain who was to blame, and then said he would accept the results of 
the Pentagon's investigation. The issue took on added urgency on Wednesday 
after the New York Times first reported that a preliminary investigation found 
that the U.S. was responsible.

   U.S. Central Command relied on target coordinates for the strike using 
outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the 
person familiar with the preliminary finding.

   The agency did not respond to a request for comment.

   The preliminary finding prompted immediate calls for more information from 
the Pentagon. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "the 
investigation is still ongoing."

   Both the U.S. official and the person familiar with the matter spoke to The 
Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

   Dozens of Democratic senators demanded answers from the Trump administration 
on Wednesday as a growing body of evidence suggested that the U.S. was likely 
responsible for the strike.

   The letter from more than 45 senators pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth 
on whether the U.S. was culpable for the strike and what previous analysis of 
the building had been done. The senators also raised concerns about the 
Pentagon hollowing-out a congressionally mandated office set up specifically to 
reduce civilian casualties.

   "Under this administration, budgetary and personnel cuts at the Department 
have robbed military commands of crucial resources to prevent and respond to 
civilian casualties," the senators wrote. Those include cuts at U.S. Central 
Command, whose forces are leading the military campaign against Iran, and the 
Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was signed into law in 2022 as 
part of a Pentagon ambition to reduce death tolls from strikes.

   The revelation could threaten to erode public support in the U.S. effort 
against Iran at a time when Trump, who as a candidate railed against American 
involvement in "stupid" overseas wars, faces persistent questions about the 
purpose and of the conflict and what would bring it to an end.

   One former Pentagon official said the Feb. 28 strike that hit Shajareh 
Tayyebeh Elementary School, which is located near a neighboring base for the 
Iranian Revolutionary Guard, came as a natural result of changes made by the 
Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian harm and Hegseth's 
emphasis on lethality over legality.

   Evidence mounts pointing to US responsibility for strike

   There are several indications that the strike on the school may have been 
avoidable.

   It happened Saturday morning, the start of the Iranian school week, when the 
building was full of young children. Satellite analysis by the AP shows that 
the school, as well as other targets struck the same day, had characteristics 
visible from the air that could have identified them as civilian sites before 
they were struck.

   The AP reported last week that satellite images, expert analysis, a U.S. 
official and public information released by the U.S. military all suggested it 
was likely a U.S. strike. That evidence grew stronger on Monday, as new footage 
emerged showing what experts identified as a U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile 
slamming into the military compound as smoke was already rising from the area 
where the school was located.

   Publicly available satellite imagery shows the school building was part of 
the military compound until about 2017, when a new wall was added to separate 
the two. A watchtower on the property was also removed. Around the same time, 
the imagery shows the walls surrounding the building were painted with murals 
in vibrant colors, primarily blue and pink, so bright they're visible from space

   The school was clearly labeled as such in online maps and has an 
easily-accessible website full of information about students, teachers and 
administrators.

   International law governing warfare bars strikes on structures, vehicles and 
people that are not military objectives and combatants. Civilian homes, 
schools, medical facilities and cultural sites are generally off limits for 
military strikes. The proximity of a school to a valid military target does not 
change its status as a civilian site, said Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer 
at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank.

   If the U.S. is found responsible, said Sen. Tim Kaine during a briefing with 
journalists on Wednesday: "It's either we've changed our traditional targeting 
rules or we made a mistake."

   "If we've changed our traditional targeting rules and we no longer provide 
the same level of protection for civilians, that would be tragic," Kaine said.

   Some Republicans, too, are sounding alarms.

   Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters that an investigation needs 
to "get to the bottom of it," and then "admit if you know whose fault it is."

   If the U.S. was behind it, Cramer said, the military must "do everything you 
can to eliminate those mistakes going forward."

   He added: "But you also can't undo it."

   Guardrails to curb civilian deaths have been gutted

   Congress directed the Pentagon to create the Civilian Protection Center of 
Excellence in late 2022 as part of the wide-ranging annual defense 
authorization bill, which passed both chambers with broad bipartisan support. 
The bill said the center was to "institutionalize and advance knowledge, 
practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian 
harm."

   The measure put into law an initiative that had already been started by 
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier that year. The 36-step action plan was 
"ambitious and necessary," Austin said at the time.

   In April 2023, that office had a full-time director hired by the Army and an 
initial core staff of 30 civilians, according to a 2024 Pentagon report that 
said that the workforce was expected to grow.

   Wes Bryant began working there in 2024 as the Branch Chief of Civil Harm 
Assessments. One of the things the office was discussing was updating the "no 
strike list," he said, a series of civilian targets in other countries that the 
Pentagon keeps. When he was working at the Pentagon, it was well known that the 
list was out-of-date, he said. But under Hegseth, the office's size was slashed 
and the work on updating the no-strike lists stopped, he said.

   "They have no budget. They're just sitting there trying to maintain any 
semblance of the mission," he said.

   Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for U.S. Central Command, denied reports 
that the military command only had a single person assigned to the mission but 
would not offer any further details, citing the ongoing investigation.