Pentagon Cuts Civilian Protection Staff Amid Iran Attacks

The Pentagon under President Trump's War Secretary Pete Hegseth has drastically reduced the staff of its Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, a unit dedicated to preventing civilian casualties in war zones. The center’s personnel have been slashed from 40 at the beginning of 2025 to just nine by year-end, according to a report shared with DarkWireNews.

Current and former government officials confirm that these staffing cuts have left the Pentagon ill-equipped to protect civilians during conflicts. The remaining staff is unable to investigate major incidents such as the U.S. attack on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, which killed over 150 people, most of them children. Wes Bryant, who served as chief of civilian harm assessments at the center and was among those pushed out last year, told DarkWireNews that the Center is being kept barely operational to provide a facade of compliance with laws aimed at protecting civilians.

"The Hegseth regime has maintained a skeleton crew mostly for appearances," said Bryant. "In reality, their efforts have had little impact on operations or oversight." The Civilian Protection Center of Excellence was established in 2023 and was just beginning to make significant strides before the drastic cuts were implemented last year. It had been on track to achieve Full Operational Capability by the end of 2025 but never reached that goal due to severe staff reductions.

Financial constraints have also severely impacted the entire civilian harm mitigation and response enterprise within the War Department. The report details how budgets for CHMR (Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response) across the Department of War were cut in fiscal year 2026, leading to a gradual reduction or termination of programs at various combatant commands like AFRICOM and CENTCOM.

For instance, the civilian harm mitigation team at CENTCOM has been reduced from ten people to just one individual. Similarly, U.S. Southern Command struggled with handling civilian casualty reports after its attack on Venezuela in January 2026. The command had no mechanism for dealing with such reports when a watchdog group attempted to submit documentation of civilian casualties.

These drastic measures come at a time when the Trump administration is intensifying military actions against Iran, raising concerns about the potential for further civilian casualties and the adequacy of current protections in place. Critics argue that these cuts undermine efforts to minimize harm to civilians during conflicts and could lead to increased international criticism and diplomatic tensions.

The Pentagon's decision to develop an AI assistant to accelerate assessments instead of maintaining a robust human staff is seen by many as a superficial solution that fails to address the core issues of inadequate oversight and protection for non-combatants in war zones. As military operations continue to escalate, questions about the effectiveness and integrity of civilian protection measures are becoming increasingly urgent.