The US is widely acknowledged to be responsible for the strike, including within internal Pentagon investigations.
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As calls for transparency grow, President Donald Trump has waved away the idea of accepting U.S. responsibility for the massacre of schoolchildren in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the U.S. and Israel’s war — and has suggested, heinously, that photo evidence of U.S. munitions used on the school “are AI.”
Asked about a letter from Democrats this week calling for the release of the U.S. military’s investigation into the bombing of the elementary girls’ school that killed 168 people, including over 100 children, Trump refused to say if that investigation would ever be released to the public.
“You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever going to be able to say what happened there,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
This is despite widespread acknowledgement that the U.S. was behind the strike, including within internal U.S. military investigations, as well as video and photo evidence showing U.S. Tomahawk missiles and missile fragments being used on the site of the elementary girls’ school on February 28, the day of the U.S. and Israel’s initial strikes on Iran.
Later, Trump was asked about the photo evidence, as well as recent reporting finding that the U.S. bombed the school as a result of a collapse in targeting protocols, with commanders bypassing warnings about outdated information in the rush to strike as many targets as possible on the first day of the war.
“Is it possible that old intelligence, or a mistake during a very active time in the war led to this event?” asked Fox correspondent Trey Yingst.
“It is, but it’s also possible that those images are AI-generated,” responded the president.
“I know we’re waiting for a conclusive report — I don’t think there can be a conclusive report,” Trump added.
The Minab massacre represents one of the worst single civilian massacres in U.S. history, if the U.S. is responsible.
The administration has been facing growing scrutiny over its seeming refusal to release the results of the investigation into the strike thus far. This is despite U.S. Central Command head Brad Cooper saying in May that the investigation was nearing its conclusion, and reports that the report was actually finished in April and is still in the hands of senior Pentagon officials.
On Monday, over two dozen Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Cooper calling for the release of the report.
“More than four months after the strike, and after the reported submission of the investigation in April, Congress and the American people still have not received the Department’s investigation and findings,” the lawmakers wrote. “There is no justification for withholding an unclassified accounting of what happened, what went wrong, and what the Department is doing to prevent recurrence.”
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