Senate threatens to ground Hegseth’s travel over Iran school bombing and boat strike investigations
The Senate Armed Services Committee is using the Pentagon’s own budget to force answers on two episodes the Trump administration would rather forget: the cruise missile strike that killed 165 schoolgirls in Iran and the drug-war shootings at sea that left dozens of civilians dead.
A provision in the committee’s version of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act would cut funding for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel to no more than 25 percent of what was requested. The cut stays in place until Hegseth hands over overdue investigations and supporting documents that lawmakers say they have been requesting since March.
The committee approved its version of the NDAA last week in an 18-9 vote, sending the bill to the full Senate. The House advanced its own version the week prior.
At the center of the dispute is the February 28 strike on a girls’ school in Minab, a city in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province. On the first day of the Iran war, a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile hit the school, killing at least 165 people, most of them children. The Pentagon opened an investigation in March. By mid-June, no report had reached the committee.
President Donald Trump has been dismissive of the matter. Asked at the G7 summit in France whether anyone in his administration would be held accountable, he told reporters: “It’s such a strange question to be asked at this state because you’re talking about a long time ago, but nobody did that on purpose. Mistakes are made. War is nasty.”
The strike on the Minab school is not an isolated case. U.S. Central Command’s office dedicated to reducing civilian harm was cut from 10 staff to a single employee earlier this year, according to a May report. The reduction came as the Pentagon was conducting some of its most intense bombing campaigns in years across Iran and Yemen, raising questions about whether the administration gutted its own capacity to track and prevent civilian casualties before the wars began.
The second demand involves unedited video footage of strikes conducted by U.S. Southern Command against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Since September 2025, the military has disclosed 64 such strikes that have killed at least 191 people. Hegseth has refused to release the footage publicly, showing it only to members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees behind closed doors.
Lawmakers have pressed Hegseth particularly hard over a September 2025 incident off the coast of Venezuela. A special operations team reportedly attacked survivors of an alleged drug-smuggling vessel strike — an episode that has fueled bipartisan concern over the rules of engagement in the drug war at sea. The NDAA provision would also require the unredacted investigation by U.S. Special Operations Command into Operation Absolution Resolve, the January 20 military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The committee is also seeking broader information on how the Defense Department notifies Congress about sensitive military operations — a procedural concern that has been building since last year, when lawmakers learned through press reports of operations they believed required prior notification.
A separate amendment that would have gone further — prohibiting the use of military funds for operations against Iran without congressional authorization and freezing Hegseth’s travel until the Pentagon reported on how the Iran war affected military readiness — failed in a 13-14 vote. The narrow margin suggests the appetite for reasserting congressional war powers is growing, even if it has not yet reached a majority.
The NDAA provision is a rare tool. It does not block the war itself. It does not cut troops. It restricts the secretary’s personal mobility until Congress gets what it asked for. For a Pentagon chief who has traveled extensively to sell the administration’s defense posture in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the threat of being grounded carries real practical weight. Whether the provision survives the House-Senate conference remains to be seen — but the message from the committee is unmistakable.
- George, 1ban.news