President Donald Trump has said he would accept the results of a Pentagon investigation after U.S. officials and a second person briefed on findings of a preliminary military probe told The Associated Press that outdated intelligence likely led the United States to carry out a deadly missile strike on an Iranian elementary school.
The AP reported that the strike killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the conflict. Both the U.S. official and the second person spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
The AP said Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, later said he was not certain who was responsible, and then said he would accept the Pentagon’s investigation results. The issue took on added urgency after The New York Times reported that a preliminary investigation found the U.S. was responsible.
According to a person familiar with the preliminary finding, U.S. Central Command relied on target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The AP said the agency did not respond to a request for comment, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that “the investigation is still ongoing.”
A growing body of evidence also prompted calls in Washington for answers, with more than 45 Democratic senators pressing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In a letter sent Wednesday, the senators demanded to know whether the U.S. was culpable for the school strike and what previous analysis of the building had been done.
The senators also raised concerns that the Pentagon hollowed out a congressionally mandated office meant to reduce civilian casualties. They wrote that “Under this administration, budgetary and personnel cuts at the Department have robbed military commands of crucial resources to prevent and respond to civilian casualties,” including cuts at U.S. Central Command and at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, signed into law in 2022.
The AP said satellite analysis and other evidence suggest the strike may have been avoidable. It reported that the incident happened Saturday morning, the start of the Iranian school week, when the building was full of young children, and that satellite analysis showed the school and other targets had characteristics visible from the air that could have identified them as civilian sites before they were struck.
The AP also said new footage emerged on Monday showing what experts identified as a U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile hitting the military compound while smoke was rising from the area where the school was located. It reported that publicly available satellite imagery showed the school building was part of the military compound until about 2017, when a new wall was added and a watchtower was removed, and that murals on surrounding walls—primarily blue and pink—were visible from space.
The AP reported that the school was clearly labeled as such in online maps and that it has an easily accessible website describing students, teachers and administrators. Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer at the Atlantic Council, said in comments reported by the AP that international law bars strikes on structures, vehicles and people that are not military objectives and combatants, and that proximity of a school to a valid military target does not change its status as a civilian site.
Senators speaking to reporters in connection with the issue said the findings pointed to either targeting failure or a shift in targeting rules. Sen. Tim Kaine said, “It’s either we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules or we made a mistake,” adding that “If we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules and we no longer provide the same level of protection for civilians, that would be tragic.” Sen. Kevin Cramer told reporters the investigation needs to “get to the bottom of it,” and “admit if you know whose fault it is,” while saying the military must “do everything you can to eliminate those mistakes going forward,” and adding, “But you also can’t undo it.”
The AP linked some of the scrutiny to the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Congress directed the Pentagon to create the center in late 2022 as part of the annual defense authorization bill, with the bill stating the center was to “institutionalize and advance knowledge, practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.” The AP said a 2024 Pentagon report described staffing in April 2023 as including a full-time director hired by the Army and an initial core staff of 30 civilians.
The AP reported that Wes Bryant began working at the office in 2024 as Branch Chief of Civil Harm Assessments, and that he said the office had been discussing updating “no-strike lists” that include protected sites such as schools, churches and mosques. Bryant also said that when he was at the Pentagon it was well known that the list was out-of-date, but that under Pete Hegseth the office’s size was cut and work on updating the no-strike lists stopped, saying, “They have no budget. They’re just sitting there trying to maintain any semblance of the mission.”
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 further details, according to the AP, citing the ongoing investigation.
The AP reported that the Feb. 28 strike hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School, located near a neighboring base for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and quoted a former Pentagon official as saying staffing changes tied to reducing personnel and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality over legality were factors that led to the incident.