{"id":49705,"date":"2026-08-14T11:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=49705"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:54:23","slug":"total-whitewash-new-pentagon-report-claims-u-s-killed-no-civilians-in-boat-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/08\/14\/total-whitewash-new-pentagon-report-claims-u-s-killed-no-civilians-in-boat-strikes\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTotal Whitewash\u201d: New Pentagon Report Claims U.S. Killed No Civilians in Boat Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Government officials told The Intercept the War Department\u2019s latest civilian casualty report was \u201csickening\u201d and a \u201cjoke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nick Turse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

August 11 2026 (therealnews.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"US<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026.\u00a0Photo: Aaron Schwartz\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The War Department<\/strong> delivered its unreleased annual report on civilian casualties to members of Congress on Tuesday, two government officials told The Intercept \u2014 one of whom called the report \u201ca fucking joke.\u201d The report found that U.S. attacks likely killed or wounded hundreds of civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other official deemed the report, which covers allegations of civilian harm stemming from military attacks in Iran, Somalia, Yemen, and the campaign of boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, a \u201ctotal whitewash.\u201d It\u2019s the latest in a series of recent Pentagon reports that have called attention to U.S. failures to prevent, mitigate, or adequately track civilian harm after self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth gutted civilian harm mitigation and response or CHMR programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shockingly, the Pentagon\u2019s review of its 2025 attacks found that no civilians were killed in the Trump administration\u2019s campaign of boat strikes, according to the officials, despite the fact that the U.S. killed more than 120 civilians<\/a> last year in attacks that experts call extrajudicial killings or outright murder. The Trump administration has asserted repeatedly and without evidence that the boat strike victims, who now number more than 220, were \u201cnarcoterrorists.\u201d In a classified briefing last fall, a high-ranking officer on the Pentagon\u2019s Joint Staff said that some of the people killed in the initial September 2, 2025, attack may have been the victims of human trafficking, according to an Intercept investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have absolutely no credibility,\u201d the second official told The Intercept about the boat strike claims, adding that the report was \u201csickening.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Top Pentagon Official Admits Boat Strike May Have Killed Victims of Human Trafficking<\/a><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Known as the 1057 report, this year\u2019s accounting of civilian casualties reflects a backlog of incidents from the Trump administration\u2019s strikes against Yemen\u2019s Houthi government in the spring of 2025. The report found that U.S. attacks killed 153 civilians and wounded almost 250 during the campaign of air and naval strikes, codenamed Operation Rough Rider. The second official called these \u201clowball numbers.\u201d At least 238 civilians were killed and 467 injured, according to the Yemen Data Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One attack killed 68 people, the second official said. That attack on an immigrant detention center in Yemen killed and injured dozens of Ethiopian civilians and no combatants and was detailed in a report by Amnesty International shared with The Intercept<\/a> last year. At the time, U.S. Central Command said it was still \u201cassessing all reports of civilian harm resulting from operations during that time period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 1057 report determined that three incidents \u201clikely\u201d harmed civilians, according to the second official. Another 15 attacks are still under review, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea CENTCOM still has fifteen cases on Yemen to adjudicate doesn\u2019t bode well for the war in Iran,\u201d said the first official. Both officials spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Section 1057 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon is required to provide Congress and the public with data on civilian harm, mitigation steps, and assessments. The officials said the Pentagon had sent the report to members of the Armed Services Committees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report does not cover Trump\u2019s ongoing failed war on Iran, which the United States and Israel launched in February, because it includes only military attacks from 2025. The second government official said that the number of incidents of civilian harm to investigate from the current war with Iran will dwarf the number in Yemen. Reports of civilian harm were recorded every day<\/a> from the beginning of the war on February 28 to the first ceasefire on April 8, according to the U.K.-based air strike monitoring group, Airwars. The World Health organization put the death toll<\/a> in Iran at 3,375 people \u2014 before the ceasefire<\/a> fell apart<\/a> last month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second official said the backlog would likely carry over several years, referencing the fact that the 10-person civilian harm mitigation team at CENTCOM has been reduced to just one individual. The first official echoed the same concerns. \u201cHow will they get through hundreds of cases for Iran if their one civilian harm person still hasn\u2019t finished Yemen?\u201d they asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Currently, CENTCOM is clinging to the fiction that the U.S. attack on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school <\/a>in Minab, Iran, that killed more than 150 people, most of them children, is the lone civilian harm incident of the current war. \u201cThere is one active civilian casualty investigation from the 13,629 munitions,\u201d Admiral Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM chief, told members<\/a> of the Senate Armed Services Committee in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Annual Report on Civilian Casualties in Connection with U.S. Military Operations in\u00a02025 comes after Hegseth\u2019s Pentagon has spent more than a year slashing measures to prevent civilian casualties, including firing the military\u2019s top lawyers, who advise leaders on international laws of armed conflict.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegseth\u2019s War Department Slashed Civilian Protection Staff, Brought in AI Assessments<\/a><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A group of Democratic lawmakers told Hegseth in a July letter<\/a> that his \u201cgutting civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) efforts\u201d has left the Pentagon unable to \u201ccomply with the law and its congressionally-mandated CHMR responsibilities.\u201d They added: \u201cThe Trump administration \u2014 potentially in violation of federal law \u2014 has defunded and impeded civilian protection efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That letter<\/a>, sent by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and nine other lawmakers, echoed concerns raised by a War Department inspector general report<\/a> that described civilian protection efforts as largely \u201cinactive.\u201d The May report by the Pentagon\u2019s top watchdog<\/a> says cuts to civilian harm mitigation and response efforts have been so severe under Hegseth that the United States cannot adequately protect civilians in conflict zones or track harm when it occurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These criticisms were echoed in an another-yet-unreleased official report<\/a> revealed by The Intercept that found Hegseth\u2019s Pentagon gutted its premier center devoted to preventing civilian casualties in war zones. The War Department\u2019s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence slashed its staff from 40 personnel in January 2025 to just nine by the end of the year, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the coming months, the Department will submit its annual report regarding casualties resulting from United States military operations during the 2025 calendar year,\u201d a Pentagon official told The Intercept when asked about the U.S. officials\u2019 comments. \u201cWe have nothing to preview or announce at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IT\u2019S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we\u2019re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not hyperbole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet far too many are still covering Trump\u2019s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as \u201cunconventional,\u201d \u201ctesting the boundaries,\u201d and \u201caggressively flexing power.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donate<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Contact the author:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nick Turse<\/a>nick.turse@theintercept.com<\/a>@nickturse<\/a>on X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government officials told The Intercept the War Department\u2019s latest civilian casualty report was \u201csickening\u201d and a \u201cjoke.\u201d Nick Turse August 11 2026 (therealnews.com) U.S. President Donald Trump speaks alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026.\u00a0Photo: Aaron Schwartz\/AFP via… 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":[1880],"tags":[2381],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49706,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49705\/revisions\/49706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}