For many U.S. service members, one day from the war with Iran stands out: On March 1, the second day of the military offensive, an unmanned Iranian drone struck a “tactical operations center” in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, killing six U.S. soldiers and wounding many others.
Months later, all kinds of questions about what transpired continue to linger, and a group of congressional Democrats apparently intend to get answers. The Washington Post reported:
Democratic lawmakers announced Thursday that they are opening an investigation into the Iranian drone strike that killed six U.S. service members in Kuwait earlier this year, citing doubts over the objectivity of the military’s internal review of the attack.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Pat Ryan (D-New York) — along with almost a dozen other House and Senate Democrats — cited recent reporting by The Washington Post and other media outlets scrutinizing the March 1 strike, saying they want answers to whether the military had adequate protections in place before the attack and whether the troops received proper medical care afterward.
In the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued that defenses were in place to protect the U.S. military outpost, but one unmanned drone — he referred to it as “a squirter” — managed to sneak through and do deadly harm.
It wasn’t long before that version of events faced pushback from sources in a position to know. In fact, in an interview with CBS News, one soldier who was injured in the attack called Hegseth’s description a “falsehood.”
Other soldiers from the Army’s 103rd Sustainment Command who survived the attack said in the interview that the military never articulated a “good reason” for moving their unit “closer to Iran, to a deeply unsafe area that was a known target.” They described the bunker protection “as weak as one gets.”
Asked if the attack was preventable, one soldier replied, “Absolutely, yes.”
During a House Armed Services Committee hearing in April, Ryan, an Army and Iraq War veteran, pressed the Pentagon chief on the contradiction between his claims and the soldiers’ assessment of what actually happened, but Hegseth largely dodged the line of inquiry.
The questions haven’t gone away.
“The need for this investigation goes beyond the Shuaiba attack — it’s about taking accountability and protecting our service members,” Ryan told the Post. “It’s our job as members of Congress to force [the defense secretary] to give us real answers and make sure something like this never happens again.”
Warren went on to note in this week’s letter that the lack of an independent investigator, coupled with new concerns about the Pentagon’s transparency and recordkeeping, raise questions about “whether investigations into service member casualty incidents will be conducted objectively,” necessitating a congressional inquiry.
For now, Hegseth has not commented on the scrutiny, though if the Democratic lawmakers have their say, he won’t be able to maintain silence indefinitely.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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