Senate Democrat links budget cuts to Iran school bombing

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The Hill's Headlines — March 13, 2026

The Hill's Headlines — March 13, 2026

Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who served on the U.S. National Security Council during the Obama administration, says that the missile strike on an elementary school in Iran may have been the result of Trump administration budget cuts.

Kim told CNN in an interview Thursday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cut funding and staff at the Civilian Protection Center, a Defense Department program set up to reduce civilian casualties during military operations.

Kim said that could have been a key factor in the Feb. 28 strike that hit the school that was near an Iranian base, killing more than 170 people. Most of the victims were children.

Military officials believe the strike may have relied on old data.

“The problem, though, is Secretary Hegseth decided to gut this office last year and has dramatically reduced the staff, not implementing the budget that is necessary,” Kim said.

“This fault lies directly on President Trump and Secretary Hegseth. They are clearly the ones who gave the orders in terms of how they should go about the risk analysis. And without this type of office, it shows just how much this administration has deprioritized the protection of civilians,” he said.

“Now we find ourselves facing one of the worst losses of civilian life at the hands of Americans in decades,” Kim added.

ProPublica reported earlier this month that the Defense Department’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response action plan has been cut by 90 percent.

Hegseth at a March 2 Pentagon briefing said that U.S. forces were “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history” with “maximum authorities.”

“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars,” he said. “We fight to win and we don’t waste time or lives.”

Yet the devastating strike on the elementary school has become a major source of concern among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Tuesday called the strike “a terrible, terrible mistake.”

“I mean, we’re investigating but I’m not going to hide behind that,” Kennedy said in a CNN interview. “I think that it was a terrible, terrible mistake.”

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