U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to defund and deprioritize Pentagon programs aimed at protecting civilians may have violated federal law and also put American servicemembers at risk, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Democratic lawmakers on both sides of Capitol Hill have said.
In a Sunday letter, Warren and her fellow lawmakers reiterated concerns first raised in a May report by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General, which “outlined critical steps to prevent, mitigate, and respond to civilian harm.”
“These findings are particularly troubling in light of the spike in civilian harm caused by the Trump administration’s ill-conceived war in Iran and Operation Rough Rider, during which nearly as many civilians were killed in two months than (in) the previous two decades of U.S. operations in Yemen,” they wrote.
The Republican White House faced international blowback early in the Iran campaign after it bombed an all-girls school, killing at least 175 people.
The Defense Department declined to comment on the letter, telling MassLive that “as with all congressional correspondence, the Department will respond directly to the authors.”
The Trump administration has previously faced sharp criticism from Warren and other lawmakers for making what they say are deep cuts to the military’s civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) programs.
Hegseth also fired personnel at the Defense Department’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, and slashed CHMR staff at the U.S. combatant commands “by more than 90%,” the lawmakers said.
The May Inspector General’s report concluded that the Pentagon had ended funding for a data management platform, ended steering committee meetings and “lost or reassigned many of the personnel dedicated to CHMR.”
The report refers to the agency by the administration’s preferred name, the Department of War, though it only can changed by an act of Congress.
Because of that, the Defense Department might not be complying with its own “civilian casualties and harm policy, a policy required by Federal law,” the report’s authors wrote.
And “eliminating CHMR funding and personnel also decreases readiness and increases risk to DoW personnel, mission success, and military objectives,” the report concluded.
In a statement, Warren and her colleagues asserted that the Trump White House’s “military adventurism overseas, combined with its obvious disregard for civilians, (does) not make the American people or our service members safer.”
“We request clarification about the steps the department is taking to address these deficiencies and to protect civilians in line with the Department’s strategic, legal, and moral obligations,” they wrote.
Warren was joined on the letter by Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Patty Murray of Washington.
U.S. Reps. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., also signed the letter.
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