WASHINGTON, D.C. — Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and eight members of Congress in pressing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on the Department of Defense’s (DoD) defunding and deprioritizing of programs that prevent and respond to civilian harm in war. The letter follows a new report by the DoD Inspector General (DoD IG), which found that under Hegseth’s leadership, DoD has put servicemembers and civilians at risk while potentially violating federal law. It also follows the recent U.S. military strikes on Iranian water treatment facilities, which damaged thousands of civilians’ access to drinking water.
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“The Trump administration’s military adventurism overseas, combined with its obvious disregard for civilians, do not make the American people or our service members safer. We [] request clarification about the steps the Department is taking to address these deficiencies and to protect civilians in line with the Department’s strategic, legal, and moral obligations,” wrote the lawmakers.
Along with Duckworth and Warren, this letter is co-signed in the Senate by U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
In the House, the letter is co-signed by U.S. Representatives Jason Crow (D-CO-06) and Sara Jacobs (D-CA-51).
In May, the DoD IG released a review of DoD’s implementation of its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which outlined critical steps to prevent, mitigate and respond to civilian harm. The DoD IG’s report found that the Trump Administration may have violated federal law by defunding and blocking civilian protection efforts.
The DoD IG report confirms that all of the objectives of the plan – including training for assessing and investigating civilian harm – are “at risk” under Hegseth’s leadership. The report also found that the Trump Administration’s failure to implement the plan means DoD is failing to comply with congressionally-mandated obligations to protect civilians during armed conflict.
“These revelations make real the concerns that we have previously raised about your complete ‘disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,’” the lawmakers said. During the DoD IG’s investigation, staff and combatant commands warned that eliminating CHMR funding and personnel “harms readiness” and “increases risk to military personnel and objectives and mission success.”
“The Department’s failure to implement the CHMR-AP has profound consequences for civilians in conflict zones and makes service members’ jobs harder and riskier,” the lawmakers continued.
DoD officials, Veteran and family organizations and other national security experts have repeatedly emphasized the importance of civilian protection. In their confirmation hearings, CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper said that civilian harm “risks degrading our credibility and trust and puts troops at risk,” and SOCOM Commander Frank Bradley called protecting civilians “critical to our success.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, has also touted the positive impacts of the DoD CHMR programs at combatant commands.
The report also revealed that DoD failed to cooperate with the office’s investigation, including by blocking investigators’ attempts to observe an implementation meeting and withholding access to DoD’s implementation tracking tools.
The lawmakers pressed Secretary Hegseth to explain DoD’s failure to implement civilian protection policies, account for changes in resourcing and staffing for civilian protection efforts, explain what DoD is doing to comply with federal law requiring civilian protection policies and institutions and provide any analysis DoD has done on the impact of recent strikes on civilian infrastructure in Iran by July 19, 2026.
