Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
A Republican senator says the U.S. must not pretend Iran school strike didn’t happen, and admit to the mistake if in fact the U.S. military was responsible for the attack.
Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters Wednesday he wants to see the final outcome of the investigation into the Feb. 28 deadly attack, but said that “the worst thing we can do, if, in fact, it was a horrible outcome from an American strike, is to try to pretend that it didn’t happen.”
The girls’ school in Minab was hit on the first day of the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, killing at least 165 people — including at least 150 young students, according to Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ali Bahreini.
In the days since, U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that Iran was itself responsible for the strike, while his secretary of war and other U.S. officials have stressed that the United States would not deliberately target civilians.
“We shouldn’t gloss over it if we made a mistake,” Tillis said. “We should admit it and move on.”
Tillis made the comments the same day Senate Democrats sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth demanding a “swift investigation” of the airstrike and any other potential U.S. military actions causing civilian harm.
At a news conference on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump again suggested Iran may be responsible for a deadly strike on a girls’ elementary school in its own country, while also raising the possibility that another country was responsible. Recently released footage shows what an expert investigative group says is likely a U.S. Tomahawk missile striking near the school.
Hegseth vows return to ‘warrior ethos’
Nearly every U.S. Senate Democrat signed the letter sent to Hegseth.
“The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages of seven and 12 years old. Neither the United States nor the Israeli government has yet taken responsibility for this attack,” the letter, signed by 46 senators, said.
Only John Fetterman, a Democratic senator known for outspoken opinions and occasional defiance of the party, didn’t sign.
Asked for comment, Fetterman said he supported the military and Israel in the operation, known as Epic Fury.
“The United States never intentionally targets civilians, including its own citizens, unlike Iran. Everyone agrees it was a tragedy. Everyone agrees on performing a full investigation,” he said in an emailed statement.
Hegseth has vowed to restore a “warrior ethos” to the U.S. military, and he referred to rules of engagement — directives typically given to military forces during a conflict — as “stupid” in a recent news conference.
Preliminary internal military report points to U.S.
U.S. media, including the New York Times and Reuters, are reporting that prelimary findings of an internal U.S. military investigation suggest that the deadly missile attack may have been the result of U.S. use of outdated targeting data.
Two sources familiar with the matter spoke to Reuters on Wednesday, providing new details about what would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of U.S. conflicts.
According to archived copies of the school’s official website, the school is adjacent to a compound operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the military force that reports to Iran’s supreme leader.
One of the sources, who spoke to Reuters about the preliminary report on the condition of anonymity, said U.S. officials responsible for creating targeting packages appeared to have used out-of-date intelligence. The second source confirmed that out-of-date intelligence appears to have been used.
It is unclear how old data ended up being used for the strike and what, if any other factors, might be responsible for the error.
In response to a request for comment about the findings so far, the Pentagon said only that “the incident is under investigation.”
Video evidence
CBC’s visual investigations team reported Mar. 4 that the attack appeared to be targeted and deliberate.
A military researcher at Factnameh, an Iranian fact-checking group out of Toronto, told CBC News then that the fact a school was struck shows it was “either the fault of a weapons system or a huge mistake [U.S. Central Command] made with intelligence gathering.”
Despite addressing the strike Monday, when he said without evidence that Iran has access to the American Tomahawk cruise missile that likely hit the school, Trump has since said he does not know enough about it to comment.
Asked Wednesday if he took responsibility for the airstrike as the commander-in-chief of U.S. forces, Trump said, “I don’t know about it.”
In the days following the deadly strike at a girls school in Iran, no country has claimed responsibility. But there are already many competing narratives about who struck the school, and whether it was intentional. CBC’s visual investigations team has analyzed and verified video moments after the strike and new satellite images to piece together what happened.
Though no Republican senators signed the letter to Hegseth, Republican Sen. John Kennedy said that all indications point to the U.S. being responsible for the strike.
“This was a terrible thing that happened,” said Kennedy. “And it looks like it’s our missiles.”
Kennedy added that no matter the response from the U.S. if they are responsible for the strike, “the kids are still dead.”
“And I’m really sorry. But we will learn from it,” said Kennedy.
Deliberately attacking a school or hospital or any other civilian structure could be considered a war crime under international humanitarian law.
