The Pentagon Cut Its Civilian Safeguards Before the Iran War
“The Pentagon, under Pete Hegseth’s leadership, significantly reduced staffing and resources dedicated to civilian protection strategies. This reduction, impacting a center established to minimize civilian casualties, has raised concerns about the potential consequences for civilian safety in ongoing conflicts.
As the civilian toll in Iran mounts, some officials point to the impact of Pete Hegseth’s hostility to battlefield restraint.
Even before President Trump returned to office, his advisers sought to remove what they saw as unnecessary constraints on the way the American military fights. The man Trump had tapped to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, had long complained about “weak” and “woke” policies that he believed were hampering the cause of battlefield victory.
In early 2025, ahead of Trump’s second inauguration, members of his transition team asked military officials to review and potentially close a unit—a “center of excellence,” in Pentagon parlance—established to help the military devise better strategies to protect civilians. The creation of the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence in 2023 was part of an effort to understand why thousands of noncombatants had died in the battle against the Islamic State terrorist group and to find ways to limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency struggles.
The center was created by law, so it couldn’t be closed outright. But the administration has dramatically reduced staffing there and fired or reassigned personnel focused on preventing civilian harm across the military. Total staff working on the issue across the military, which numbered nearly 200 at its peak, has been reduced by about 90 percent over the past year, people familiar with the matter told me.”
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