Senators are seeking to block Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel funds until the Pentagon submits several overdue reports to lawmakers, including its investigation into a deadly strike on an elementary school in Iran at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war.
According to an annual defense authorization bill, filed this week, much of the travel funds for the defense secretary’s office may not be spent until Hegseth submits “unredacted civilian harm investigations,” including for the Feb. 28, 2026, strike on the Minab school. Officials have preliminarily said the U.S. was responsible for the strike, which was blamed on outdated intelligence.
Congress, which conducts oversight of the Pentagon, has not yet received the Defense Department’s report on the investigation. It is believed to have been completed last month.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that this year’s annual defense package “forces the Secretary to be more accountable to Congress and will prevent many errors of the past from being repeated in the future.”
Strike on elementary school became a flashpoint
The bombing of the elementary school on the first day of the U.S. war against Iran killed more than 165 people, many of them children, at the campus adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base. It quickly became a focal point of the conflict.
Outdated intelligence likely led to the United States carrying out the missile strike, according to those familiar with the preliminary findings in March. If so, it would stand among the highest civilian casualty events caused by American military operations in the last two decades.
Senators from both parties tucked the new provisions blocking Hegseth’s travel funds into the National Defense Authorization Act to force release of the investigation.
The Senate bill text said not more than 25% of the defense secretary’s travel funds may be spent until he submits the investigations, “including all relevant supporting documents,” for several incidents of civilian harm.
The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senators also demand video of the boat strikes near Venezuela
Senators also are seeking to withhold Hegseth’s travel funds until the Pentagon releases “unedited video” of the U.S. strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats near Venezuela.
The Pentagon has conducted a monthslong campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 208 people so far. Many of the attacks have been captured on videos that the department announces by posting select footage on social media.
In at least one instance, survivors have been killed in follow-on strikes, which experts have said is at odds with military law and rules of engagement. Lawmakers also pressed for such video in last year’s defense package.
Additionally, lawmakers are seeking three other investigations into a series of strikes in Yemen in April 2025. They were conducted during the U.S. military’s campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who were attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea.
The list of requested investigations includes a strike on a port that left at least 70 dead and more than 170 wounded and a strike on neighborhood in Sanaa, the rebel-held capital of Yemen, that hit a house, killing at least four people and wounding 16 others.
The casualty figures for both were provided by the Houthis.
At the time, U.S. Central Command didn’t answer questions relating to the strikes in Yemen. Following the port strike, it said it “was not intended to harm the people of Yemen.” Central Command argued it was intended to “eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years.”
Senators conduct oversight as part of sweeping defense bill
The reports being requested from the Pentagon are to be submitted to the Armed Services committees in the House and Senate.
The directive comes as part of the annual defense bill, a sprawling 1,500-page document that sets policy for the coming year. The package is compiled by both parties — Republicans, who hold the majority in the Senate, and Democrats in the minority.
It’s one of the rare bipartisan measures that is almost always approved by Congress.
The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the measure last week, and it is now headed to the full Senate for a vote.
