US military delayed intelligence review tied to Iran's Minab school strike, CNN reports

The first two stages of a “battle damage assessment” were conducted within a week of the strike and focused on answering basic questions, including whether the strike hit and damaged the intended target.

However, the next standard investigation step, where analysts, generally from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) review the entirety of the available information around the event, including satellite imagery and other intelligence sources to provide a more holistic determination about what took place and how the strike impacted the broader operation, was not ordered, as of early July, CNN wrote, although the review would almost always be conducted in the immediate aftermath of a noteworthy strike.

An independent investigation was launched in March, with interviews conducted with service members involved in the strike.

Sources told CNN that information gained from such interviews had been “locked down” by CENTCOM, with access given to only a select few officers, despite their potential use to commanders still launching strikes against Iran.

“There was no detailed analysis conducted, and CENTCOM locked down the investigation/blocked anyone from looking into it,” CNN cited an official as saying.

A Defense Department official told CNN that “the investigation is ongoing,” adding that “we have nothing further to announce at this moment.”

One source told CNN that the DIA could not take place at the same time as the independent investigation, as the initial review indicated that the strike required a more thorough probe involving an independent body outside of CENTCOM.

The investigation was given to an unnamed US general officer outside of CENTCOM for independent review, CNN wrote.

Findings from the independent investigations were submitted to CENTCOM in April, but the delay continued due to a need to examine the causes of the targeting further, with layers of mistakes extending back years, the official told CNN.

A previous CNN report indicated that senior US military commanders ignored warnings in critical bases about out-of-date intelligence regarding potential targets in Iran.

The decision to ignore the warnings was made for “expediency,” and led directly to the accidental strike on the school, the officials told CNN.

They added that the lack of a full review of the intelligence is unprecedented for such a noteworthy strike.

The assessment was conducted as part of a phase three analysis of the strikes, which the DIA undertook without an express request from CENTCOM, assuming it would fulfill its role of completing the analysis as usual, according to the source.

However, once the press picked up on the reports in the assessment and the way in which it contradicted Trump’s claims, both the White House and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grew upset with DIA leadership, the source told CNN.

Gen. Jeffrey Kruse was then fired as DIA director.

Sources told CNN that the use of classification power has grown to unprecedented levels, with the Pentagon and CENTCOM restricting access to even basic information and planning details that had previously been shared widely among service branches to coordinate operations.

“I’ve never seen it used on stuff like this,” CNN cited one of the sources as saying. “One of the reasons the US military is as effective as it is, is because we work pretty well together … When you keep siloing us away from each other, we don’t amplify each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses. And you only do that if you’re bizarrely paranoid that we won’t follow your orders, or you don’t trust us.”

Trump has repeatedly stated that the full story surrounding the strike may never be known.

“I don’t think anybody is ever going to be able to say what happened there,” Trump told Fox News in an interview earlier in the week.

Trump seemed close to claiming US responsibility for the strike in early June, brushing off questions about the strike, but telling reporters that “mistakes are made. War is nasty,” and that “nobody did that on purpose.”

However, since then, Trump has cast doubts on US responsibility and satellite photos showing evidence it was a US strike, suggesting they may have been AI-generated.

The group of more than two dozen US senators, including the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, requested the US military finalize its investigation, brief Congress and present a plan to ensure such a mistake does not happen again.

"There is no justification for withholding an unclassified accounting of what happened, what went wrong, and what the Department is doing to prevent recurrence," the letter said.

Senator Gillibrand also expressed concern over AI involvement in targeting decisions, questioning Under Secretary of Defense nominee Honorable Jules W. Hurst III, about whether AI was used in the strike on Minab at a meeting of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Hurst, having not seen the report, was unable to answer.

“Having AI-enhanced capabilities to defend is extremely important. But I’m highly concerned that before we push send on a missile that is going to target perhaps a girl’s school because the targeting was done so poorly, and the analysis wasn’t done accurately, that we have a human in the loop,” Gillibrand said.

Gillibrand once again called for the Senate to receive the report.