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The Trump administration has pushed to increase the ‘lethality’ of U.S. war operations, a move critics say will lead to more civilian deaths
Josh Marcus in San Francisco Wednesday 11 March 2026 21:30 GMT- Bookmark
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Before the Iran war, the Trump administration reportedly gutted a series of initiatives aimed at reducing civilian casualties, according to insiders.
The move is under new scrutiny now that the U.S. is accused of launching a February 28 missile strike that hit a girls' primary school near a military base and killed scores of people. The attack in the city of Minab left more than 165 people dead, most of them children under 12, according to Iranian officials.
“We’re departing from the rules and norms that we’ve tried to establish as a global community since at least World War II,” Air Force veteran Wes J. Bryant, a member of the Pentagon’s Biden-era Civilian Protection Center of Excellence who was forced out in job cuts last spring, told ProPublica. “There’s zero accountability.”
The U.S. says the strike is under investigation, though President Trump has suggested Iran or “somebody else” might be responsible for the attack, which appeared to use an American Tomahawk missile.
Internally, a Pentagon probe reportedly found that outdated U.S. targeting data caused American forces to hit the school.
open image in galleryThe U.S. gutted an initiative aimed at reducing civilian casualties prior to the outbreak of the Iran war, where American forces are accused of striking a girls primary school and killing scores of children (ISNA)The president, asked on Wednesday about the report, said he didn’t know about it.
If the U.S. were responsible for the Minab strike, it would be the deadliest U.S. military attack for civilians in decades and the exact sort of tragedy officials have been working to avoid since implementing the 2022 Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) plan.
That effort worked to integrate more in-depth planning, civilian mapping, and after-action investigations across the U.S. military command. Critics of such plans said the U.S. already integrated the laws of war into its planning, and extra steps of review hampered battlefield effectiveness.
Under the Trump administration, former officials told ProPublica, CHMR has been scaled back by some 90 percent, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reorients the military around maximum “lethality” and a “warrior ethos.”
The administration has also reportedly lowered the authorization level needed for lethal force and broadened target categories.
open image in galleryDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. takes extraordinary precautions to avoid civilian harm, but he has also reportedly rolled back targeting safeguards to emphasize maximum ‘lethality’ and a ‘warrior ethos’ at the Pentagon (AP)The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
“The Defense Department has defunded critically important civilian protection functions at a time when they are desperately needed,” Annie Shiel, director of U.S. advocacy at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told Politico. “The policies are still in place. But they don’t have the resources or top-cover to implement them to their fullest extent, and that is very concerning. Ultimately, it’s civilians who pay the price.”
Hegseth, who frequently championed a group of U.S. troops accused of war crimes during his time on Fox News, insisted this week that “no nation takes more precautions” than the U.S. to protect civilians in war zones, while at the same time criticizing “overbearing” rules of engagement.
“We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country,” he said at a Tuesday press conference. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”
Hegseth has also fired top military lawyers and inspectors general.
open image in galleryPresident Trump has suggested Iran carried out the primary school strike, and has brushed off reports that a U.S. military review concluded American forces were behind it (AFP via Getty Images)The Biden administration had its share of concerning incidents, including an infamous 2021 strike in Afghanistan that killed an aid worker and nine members of his family, but the Trump administration has ramped up boundary-pushing attacks considerably.
President Trump has already overseen more air strikes in office than Biden did during his entire presidency, according to an analysis from The Telegraph.
These have included a “catastrophic” 2025 strike on an immigration detention center in Yemen that killed 61 detainees, according to Amnesty International, and a string of attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.
Critics of the boat strikes allege they are extrajudicial assassinations, based on non-public evidence, which have killed civilians, while the Trump administration insists they are justified because the U.S. is an armed conflict with drug groups.
Late last year, the Defense Department declined to release the full unedited footage of a controversial “double tap” September boat strike that killed survivors of an initial barrage.
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