"At the same time, the man who would head America’s gigantic military has tied US foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: “If you love America, you should love Israel.”
"Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that the US military should ignore the Geneva conventions and any international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead “unleash them” to become a “ruthless”, “uncompromising” and “overwhelmingly lethal” force geared to “winning our wars according to our own rules”.
On Jan 23, 2025, at 8:30 PM, Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com> wrote:
That office is incompatible with incoming SecDef Hegseth's goal to make the U.S. military the "most moral military in the world," right next to his model, the IDF:
"At the same time, the man who would head America’s gigantic military has tied US foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: “If you love America, you should love Israel.”
"Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that the US military should ignore the Geneva conventions and any international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead “unleash them” to become a “ruthless”, “uncompromising” and “overwhelmingly lethal” force geared to “winning our wars according to our own rules”."
People in Kabul sift through twisted metal and rubble in the aftermath of a U.S. drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Aug. 2021. (Susannah George/The Washington Post)
The Trump administration is moving to abolish a Pentagon office responsible for promoting civilian safety in battlefield operations, suggesting that incoming Defense Department leaders may attempt to loosen restrictions on U.S. military operations worldwide.
In the days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, his transition team provided Pentagon officials with a set of orders outlining early priorities for his second term, including a desire to review and potentially abolish the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, said a U.S. defense official. The office, housed within the Department of the Army, helps the military to limit unintended civilian deaths.
As a result of that order, the Army has begun drafting a proposal to defund and potentially “disestablish” the office, according to five people familiar with the discussions and an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the nascent plan. The document, issued Monday and signed by Army staff director Lt. Gen. Laura A. Potter, requires senior Army leader review no later than Feb. 21.
Shuttering the office, which was established under a 2023 law, would require congressional approval. It was not immediately clear whether the Trump administration would seek to reallocate some of the center’s functions elsewhere.
“As is routine in a new administration, the [Defense Department] Agency Review Team tasked the Army to review its programs and responsibilities,” an Army spokeswoman, Cynthia O. Smith, said in a statement. “The Army continues to fund and support the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence” as the Pentagon department tasked with hosting it.
Spokespeople for Trump’s acting defense secretary, Robert G. Salesses, could not be reached immediately for comment.
The early moves suggest the Trump Pentagon may distance itself from a host of measures established under President Joe Biden to prioritize the safety of noncombatants in conflict zones. Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who has promised to make the U.S. military more lethal,has complainedabout overly restrictive rules of engagement and said that service members “fight lawyers as much as we fight bad guys.”
Hegseth, a former National Guard soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, used his perch as a Fox News host to advocate during Trump’s first presidential term for lenient treatment of troops accused in war crimes cases. Trump pardoned two of those soldiers and intervened on behalf of a Navy SEAL. Healso suggestedshortly before being tapped for the Pentagon role in November that he had told troops under his command in Iraq they could ignore rules of engagement communicated to them.
People familiar with the effort to shut down the office said that even if Congress blocks its closure, military and administration officials could act to zero out its budget, fire or reassign personnel, or take other steps to render the office functional on paper but practically inert.
The center’s roots lie in the thousands of civilian deaths that occurred in decades of U.S. counterinsurgent operations following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. During Trump’s first presidency, as civilian deaths surged during the air war against the Islamic State, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. oversawa review of the military’s handling of civilian protection, setting in motion a process that led to the center’s establishment.
Under a follow-on plan established during the Biden administration, the Pentagon assigned specialists to military operations centers worldwide to advise commanders, incorporate civilian harm reduction into training exercises, refine data collection and improve the military’s response when deaths occur.
The Center of Excellence, staffed by about 30 people with backgrounds in targeting, intelligence, civil affairs or humanitarian organizations, was established to share best practices across the military and assist commanders and battlefield personnel in integrating new information into their battle plans. It has an annual budget of $7 million.
“If we want to protect our troops, we should continue to focus on these efforts rather than unwind them. Protecting civilians in conflict is both a moral and national security imperative,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado), an Army veteran who was involved in legislation that established the center, said in a statement. “I am ready to talk and work with anyone about why these efforts are important for national security and the safety of our troops.”
A former Pentagon official who worked closely with the center was surprised to hear about the effort to shutter the office, which they said, had been welcomed by commands and Army leadership.
Officials who have worked in the Center of Excellence and on other aspects of the Pentagon’s system for improving its record on civilian harm have sought to counter the perception that it imposes constraints on military commanders as they target adversaries or establishes punitive measures for personnel carrying out such missions.
Rather, they described the system, which includes more than 150 people across Defense Department offices and combatant commands, as a tool that provides commanders more information as they conduct operations, informing targeters or military planners about patterns of life in a particular area, identifying cultural sites and averting unintended deaths before they occur.
“This certainly doesn’t prevent you from ‘taking the gloves off,’” a senior defense official said. “But what it means is, when you ‘put the gloves on’ … you’ll hit what you want to hit, and not what you don’t.”
Officials who work on civilian harm issues said in the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration that they were hopeful the system would find support under the new administration.
“This is an additional capability that we give to the force,” the senior defense official said. “This is all about avoiding unintended effects, and winning wars.”
The Defense Department’s focus on reducing civilian harm also prioritizes rooting out what the military calls “confirmation bias,” or favoring information that aligns with existing beliefs.
Military officials said confirmation biascontributedto a botched 2021 strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians as U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The incident fueled lawmakers’ demands for corrective measures to prevent such tragedies. The department concluded that confirmation bias alsoplayed a rolein the death of a civilian in a separate strike in Syria in 2023.