Senators are seeking to tie War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s future travel budget to a review of a set of deadly strikes on a school in Iran and other outstanding oversight requests before the Pentagon.
The Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the southern Iranian city of Minab was repeatedly struck on Feb. 28, as U.S. and Israeli forces commenced large-scale combat operations against the Iranian regime. Local officials have said that more than 150 were killed, including more than 100 school children, while dozens more were wounded.
The U.S. military has not claimed responsibility for the strikes on the school, which is located near an Iranian military base. In the months since the strikes, U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly pressed the Pentagon for more details about the strikes, including identification of the parties.
This week, the Senate Armed Services Committee filed its draft for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2027. The NDAA draft includes a provision stating that the office of the war secretary may not use more than 25 percent of its allocated travel budget until it addresses several outstanding oversight items, including an investigation into civilian harm caused by the Minab school strikes.
Asked about the strikes during a press conference in France on June 17, President Donald Trump said that “mistakes are made; a war is nasty.” He then said a report on the incident could be ready within the day, but he deferred questions on the matter to Hegseth.
The Pentagon did not respond by publication time to a request for details about the potential timeline for releasing its investigative findings on the Minab school strike.
Lawmakers have previously tied the secretary’s travel budget to the completion of oversight requests.
The NDAA for Fiscal Year 2026 blocked the war secretary’s office from accessing more than 75 percent of its travel budget until it completed several oversight requests. Those oversight items included the release to Congress of unedited footage of strikes targeting drug boats operating in the waters surrounding Latin America and a Pentagon report on lessons learned from the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict.
In addition to the investigative findings of the Minab school strikes, the language of the current Senate NDAA draft calls for civilian harm investigative reports on two different sets of U.S. strikes on Yemen in April 2025. Senators also renewed their demand for the release of footage related to the campaign of boat strikes across Latin America, as one of the oversight items they would use to condition Hegseth’s travel budget.
