Hegseth Cut Civilian Protection Program Over Commanders' Objections

Shortly after taking office, Hegseth polls top commanders with three options: cut 65% of CHMR staff but keep it operational, keep only a small centralized office in Washington, or eliminate the program. Nine commanders pick the first, least-damaging option. Leaders of two commands — one overseeing the nuclear arsenal, one focused on cyber threats — reject all three and ask to keep the full program.

The Army's acting secretary writes a memo calling the program redundant and recommending Congress repeal the law that created it. The Army is the one exception among the services, agreeing with scrapping CHMR entirely. The Joint Staff disagrees with that memo, according to correspondence reviewed by ProPublica.

Hegseth guts the effort anyway, stripping it of nearly all funding even as the U.S. launches new campaigns in Somalia, Yemen and Iran. U.S. Central Command, which told Hegseth's staff it needed a minimum of nine of its 16 CHMR staffers to function, is left with one person.

The first major operation of Hegseth's tenure, an air campaign in Yemen, kills 153 civilians and wounds 243 others. Most of the deaths come from just two strikes, ranking them among the deadliest for civilians the Pentagon has acknowledged in modern warfare, according to Airwars, a British watchdog. The toll was confirmed in the Pentagon's 2025 annual civilian casualty report, first reported by The Washington Post.

On the first day of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, a U.S. airstrike hits the Shajarat al-Tayyiba Primary School in Minab, a city near the Strait of Hormuz, killing more than 100 children.

Eleven Democratic senators write to Hegseth saying the school strike and other deadly attacks on civilians in Iran reflect "the administration's broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm." That same month, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby sends Hegseth a memo with a single proposal: reboot the program at reduced strength.