[[link removed]]

HEGSETH CUTS PENTAGON WORK ON PREVENTING CIVILIAN HARM  
[[link removed]]


 

John Ismay and Azmat Khan
March 4, 2025
New York Times
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Employees at the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response
office were told their jobs would be eliminated, as would advisory
posts at operational commands. _

The ruins of Rafi Al Iraqi’s house in Mosul, Iraq. Airstrikes on
his neighborhood on Jan. 6, 2017, killed 16 civilians.Credit..., Ivor
Prickett/The New York Times

 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is moving to terminate Pentagon offices
and positions that focus on preventing and responding to civilian harm
during U.S. combat operations, according to three defense officials.

Employees at the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response
office, which deals with policy matters related to limiting the risk
to noncombatants, were informed on Monday that their office would be
closed, the officials said.

They were also told that the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence,
which handles training and procedures, would close as well.

The Pentagon is likely to cut all positions at combatant commands
around the world, like Central Command and Africa Command, that work
to mitigate and assess risks to civilians during airstrikes and other
military operations.

It is unclear whether Mr. Hegseth is rescinding the
Pentagon’s policy instruction
[[link removed]],
which requires that possible risks to civilians are considered in
combat planning and operations.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive
policy changes.

If enforced, the decision would eliminate jobs for more than 160
Defense Department employees.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense referred questions about Mr.
Hegseth’s decision to close these programs to the Army, which did
not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding those
developments on Tuesday.

In President Trump’s first week back in office, the Army
[[link removed]] asked
Pentagon leadership to rescind the policy instruction, relieve the
service of its responsibility for the Center of Excellence and to ask
Congress to abolish the office.

The laws of armed conflict require the protection of civilians in war
zones, and senior commanders draft rules of engagement for their
forces to comply with them.

Long considered a bedrock of U.S. military culture, those principles
are now under threat in the second Trump administration, as Mr.
Hegseth repeatedly speaks about wanting to return “warfighting”
and a “warrior ethos”
[[link removed]] to
a military he insists has become soft and too bureaucratic.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Hegseth answered questions
about his past comments, including that “restrictive rules of
engagement”
[[link removed]] briefed
to him by a uniformed attorney known as a Judge Advocate General, or
JAG, had made it more difficult to defeat enemies, as well as his use
of the term “jagoff
[[link removed]]”
to derisively refer to those officers.

Such rules of engagement, which establish guidelines for the use of
deadly force in a military operation, are in fact signed by the senior
officer in a given combat theater, not by JAG officers.

In a leadership purge at the Pentagon on Feb. 21
[[link removed]],
Mr. Hegseth fired the top uniformed lawyers for the Army and Air
Force
[[link removed]].
The Navy’s top JAG, a three-star admiral, abruptly retired in
December. His deputy, a two-star admiral, remains in place as the
acting Navy JAG.

In a post on LinkedIn
[[link removed]] late
Monday night, Matt Isler, a retired Air Force brigadier general who
oversaw the combination of aerial surveillance, coalition air power
and ground-based weapons in support of ground troops battling Islamic
State fighters in Iraq and Syria, pushed back on the new Pentagon
leadership’s decision.

“Some have recently argued that Defense Department efforts to
mitigate civilian deaths in war inappropriately constrain U.S.
forces,” he wrote. “This could not be farther from the truth.”

“Reducing risks of civilian harm focuses combat effects on the
enemy, accelerates achievement of campaign objectives, preserves
combat power, and protects warfighters,” he added.

Mr. Hegseth’s decision was heavily criticized by civilian harm
protection advocates with whom the military worked in close
consultation to develop policies.

“Repeal of these lifesaving policies would be a betrayal of the
civilians who have borne the brunt of U.S. operations,” said Annie
Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in
Conflict. “It would also be a betrayal of the war fighters and
veterans Secretary Hegseth says he stands for, who have themselves
worked to ensure the U.S. can learn from the grave mistakes and
lessons of past wars.”

Eliminating these programs could also halt efforts to provide redress
and payments to civilian victims of U.S. combat operations.

Joanna Naples-Mitchell, a human rights lawyer representing 30 families
whose loved ones were injured or killed in U.S. combat operations in
Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan between 2015 and 2024, said that
eliminating these programs would exacerbate the trauma of civilian
victims and moral injury among soldiers involved in the incidents.

Ms. Naples-Mitchell, whose clients include the relatives of victims
who were the subject of New York Times reporting
[[link removed]],
said the changes would make the government less efficient.

“Killing innocent people is not only a moral stain,” she said,
“but wastes government resources and makes Americans less safe.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, also criticized Mr.
Hegseth’s move.

“By revoking these policies, we increase the risk that U.S. weapons
are deployed in a manner that undermines our interests and values —
ultimately posing a greater threat to our national security,” he
said. “Americans should be ashamed.”

The Defense Department’s civilian protection program was started
during the first Trump administration by James N. Mattis, the
secretary of defense at the time, in response to a Times report in
November 2017
[[link removed]] on
civilians who were killed during airstrikes in Iraq.

In 2022, after a series of Times investigations
[[link removed]] that
uncovered systemic failures to protect civilians, Defense Secretary
Lloyd J. Austin III announced sweeping changes
[[link removed]] to
military doctrine, planning and training aimed at mitigating the risk
of civilian harm.

While these programs were heralded as making improvements to U.S.
civilian harm policies, they faced criticism
[[link removed]] for
not addressing operations the United States supports through military
aid alone, such as Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

The Trump administration also recently rescinded Biden-era limits
[[link removed]] on
counterterrorism drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional
war zones, reverting to the looser set of rules the president used in
his first term.

Since Mr. Trump took office, the U.S. military has launched several
strikes in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, despite his earlier promises to
end “endless wars.”
[[link removed]]

The most recent of those actions targeted Al-Shabaab fighters in
Somalia on Saturday, according to a statement released by U.S. Africa
Command
[[link removed]].

On Feb. 23, U.S. forces launched an attack in northwest Syria that
killed the senior leader of a terrorist organization affiliated with
Al Qaeda, according to U.S. Central Command, which later released a
video of the strike
[[link removed]].

On Feb. 12, five ISIS fighters in Iraq were killed in an airstrike
enabled by U.S. forces in the country, Central Command said in a
statement
[[link removed]] days
later.

_John Ismay [[link removed]] is a reporter
covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive
ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy._

_Azmat Khan [[link removed]] is an
investigative reporter for The Times specializing in American warfare,
weapons and the human costs of conflict._

* War Casualties
[[link removed]]
* Bombing civilians
[[link removed]]
* Pete Hegseth
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]