{"id":47154,"date":"2026-03-12T12:43:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47154"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:43:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:43:31","slug":"preliminary-pentagon-findings-betray-trumps-outrageous-lies-about-iranian-school-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/03\/12\/preliminary-pentagon-findings-betray-trumps-outrageous-lies-about-iranian-school-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary Pentagon Findings Betray Trump\u2019s Outrageous Lies About Iranian School Massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"New<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anti-war protestors gather in front of the New York Public Library and mourn the Iranian children killed during the apparent US bombing of a girls\u2019 elementary school in Minab, Iran on March 8, 2026 in New York City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by Selcuk Acar\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201cshould be potentially charged and prosecuted for war crimes,\u201d said the advocacy group Just Foreign Policy.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mar 11, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The preliminary findings of a Pentagon<\/a> investigation into the deadly bombing of an Iranian elementary school reportedly indicate that the US was responsible for the massacre\u2014and that the building was intentionally targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings, reported<\/a> by The New York Times<\/a> on Wednesday, further undercut President Donald Trump\u2019s lie<\/a> that Iran carried out the February 28 strike, which killed at least 175 people\u2014mostly children<\/a>. According to the Times, US investigators determined that the strike on the girls\u2019 school in the southern Iranian city of Minab \u201cwas the result of a targeting mistake by the US military<\/a>, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base<\/a> of which the school building was formerly a part.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018That Was Done by Iran,\u2019 Trump Lies as More Evidence Shows US Was Behind School Massacre<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u2018Up There With My Lai\u2019: Investigations Find US Was Likely Behind Iranian School Massacre<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOfficers at US Central Command created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency,\u201d the Times reported, citing unnamed people briefed on the investigation. \u201cOfficials emphasized that the findings are preliminary and that there are important unanswered questions about why the outdated information had not been double checked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a social media<\/a> post reacting to the new reporting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D-Mass.) wrote<\/a> that the Iranian school massacre is \u201cone of the most devastating military errors in decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump lied about it. [Pentagon Secretary] Pete Hegseth gutted the office preventing civilian casualties<\/a>. 175 are dead. Most were kids,\u201d wrote Warren. \u201cHegseth should be fired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advocacy organization Just Foreign Policy wrote<\/a> in response to Warren, \u201cHegseth should be potentially charged and prosecuted for war crimes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Times\u2019 story is consistent with earlier reporting<\/a> on internal Pentagon findings, US-marked missile fragments<\/a> collected from the scene, video footage<\/a>, outside investigations by news outlets, and analysis by human rights<\/a> groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al Jazeera concluded<\/a> after examining satellite imagery, video footage, and other material that \u201ceither the bombing of the school was the result of a grave intelligence failure caused by reliance on outdated databases that did not keep pace with successive changes in the complex\u2019s layout, or it was a deliberate strike based on a linkage that treats the school as part of the military system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould be criminal negligence in a war that was illegal to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minab school appears to have been separated from the Iranian Navy compound a decade ago, NBC News reported<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote<\/a> in response to the Times\u2019 reporting that the Trump administration<\/a> should not be allowed to get away with blaming the massacre on old targeting information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c’Outdated data\u2019 is not an adequate explanation for why the US military attacked a girls\u2019 school in Iran, killing 175, mostly girls,\u201d Roth wrote on social media. \u201cWhy wasn\u2019t the data updated before the attack? Do Iranian civilian lives not matter?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Painter, an attorney who served as the chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush<\/a> White House<\/a>, said<\/a> the apparent US strike \u201ccould be criminal negligence in a war that was illegal to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One this past weekend, Trump said definitively\u2014and without any evidence\u2014that the school massacre \u201cwas done by Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions,\u201d the president said. \u201cThey have no accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But arms experts have argued that all available evidence indicates a precision attack, not an errant missile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe targeting of this site is incredibly accurate,\u201d Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in arms control and open-source intelligence, told<\/a> NBC News. \u201cThe explosion damage is incredibly precise, and it doesn\u2019t look like really anything missed, so that would tend to argue for precision munitions delivered by aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich Weir, senior adviser of the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, told the outlet that \u201cthe number of individual strikes across the compound and the apparent accuracy with which they appear to have struck individual structures across the compound, shown in part through the relatively small circular holes that were points of entry for the munitions on multiple rooftops, indicate that the attack struck multiple structures on the compound base with highly accurate, guided munitions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Times\u2019 reporting came shortly after every member of the Senate Democratic caucus except Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)<\/a> wrote a letter<\/a> to Hegseth demanding a \u201cswift\u201d and transparent investigation into the school massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe findings must be released to the public as soon as possible, along with any measures to pursue accountability,\u201d the senators wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anti-war protestors gather in front of the New York Public Library and mourn the Iranian children killed during the apparent US bombing of a girls\u2019 elementary school in Minab, Iran on March 8, 2026 in New York City.  (Photo by Selcuk Acar\/Anadolu via Getty Images) Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201cshould… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47154"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47155,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47154\/revisions\/47155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}