"No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a gathering of hundreds of generals and admirals, a remark that helps explain why he moved to dismantle a Pentagon effort aimed at reducing civilian harm.
The 2025 poll of top commanders
Shortly after taking office in early 2025, Hegseth asked the nation’s senior commanders to choose among three options for Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR): cut 65% of staff but keep it operational; continue only a small centralized office in Washington; or eliminate the program entirely. According to a memo reviewed by ProPublica, nine commanders picked the first option — preserving the effort as much as possible — while two commanders, one overseeing the nuclear arsenal and another focused on cyber threats, declined all three options and asked to keep the full program.
Central Command, Erik Kurilla and the case to preserve CHMR
U.S. Central Command in Tampa pressed to retain its full CHMR staff of 16. A Central Command memo reviewed by ProPublica warned that eliminating or scaling back the effort would “result in decreased efficiency of U.S. lethal operations due to an increased risk of target misidentification and reduced battlespace awareness.” Erik Kurilla, then in charge of Central Command, and several other senior officers directly involved in combat operations appealed to Hegseth to keep the program; one retired general told ProPublica their case was that the effort was a valuable operational tool.
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See what we buildCasualties tied to campaigns in Yemen and Iran
The consequences of the cuts were stark. In spring 2025, the first major military operation of Hegseth’s tenure — an air campaign in Yemen — killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 others, according to Airwars and the Pentagon’s 2025 annual civilian-casualty report cited by The Washington Post. By the time U.S. forces began striking Iran the following year, CHMR staffing had fallen from a little under 200 people to around two dozen, some part time; Central Command, which said it needed a minimum of nine of its 16 staffers to function, was left with one person.
On the first day of the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran, a U.S. airstrike hit a school in Minab, killing more than 100 children and prompting international outrage. Hegseth and the commander in charge of the Iran operation, Adm. Brad Cooper, were questioned before Congress about the strike. Hegseth said the U.S. does not target civilians and would investigate; early reports on that investigation, not yet publicly released, have said outdated U.S. intelligence led to the attack on the school.
How CHMR was reduced and what it did
Hegseth ultimately gutted CHMR, stripping almost all of its funding and leaving only a handful of people to carry out the mission even as the U.S. launched new campaigns in Somalia, Yemen and Iran. Before the cuts, CHMR had been formalized in 2022 and had stationed personnel within major regional commands to develop a picture of life on the ground, advise on strikes, investigate reports of casualties and institutionalize best practices. A center near the Pentagon had an annual budget of $7 million; cross-command civilian-security work was estimated at about $80 million before the reductions. The center of excellence handled training, research and data collection and sometimes acted as a “red team” pushing back on proposed strikes.
Not all senior leaders agreed with the cuts: the Joint Staff echoed commanders’ support for CHMR, while the Department of the Army — led by a civilian appointee — agreed with eliminating it. One retired general told ProPublica that harm mitigation and operational effectiveness are “two sides of the same coin.”
Elbridge Colby’s memo and a partial reboot
As pressure from Congress and within the military mounted after high-casualty strikes, the Defense Department signaled a backtrack. In April, Undersecretary of Policy Elbridge Colby sent Hegseth a follow-up memo proposing a reboot of CHMR at reduced levels: 70 full-time people, described in the memo as 35% of the prior capacity. Colby wrote that maintaining 35% would allow the department to handle investigations into civilian harm, meet reporting obligations to Congress and provide payments to those harmed. The plan called for all regional commands to reconstitute their civilian-harm-reduction staff and for the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence to move from the Army to the Joint Staff, a change intended to ease collaboration with the Navy and Air Force. Several defense officials told ProPublica the same commanders Hegseth polled earlier endorsed the proposal.
What this means for combatant commanders, Congress, and humanitarian groups
- Combatant commanders: The partial revival would allow regional commands to restore some CHMR staffing after warning that reductions increased the risk of misidentification and reduced battlespace awareness; Central Command had said it needed at least nine CHMR staffers to function effectively.
- Congress and senators: Eleven senators wrote to Hegseth in April, saying the school strike and other deadly attacks reflected “the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm” and noting the dismantling of reduction efforts; the Colby proposal addresses congressional reporting and investigative responsibilities.
- Humanitarian groups and public watchdogs: The heavy toll from the Yemen campaign and the Minab school strike — documented by Airwars and acknowledged in Pentagon reporting — has fueled international criticism and scrutiny that contributed to calls for restoring at least part of CHMR.
The department’s apparent reversal — preserving a scaled-down CHMR and moving its center to the Joint Staff — marks a rare policy retreat under Hegseth and the president. Whether a 35% restoration of staffing and a smaller budget will replicate the operational benefits commanders attributed to the program before its reduction remains to be seen; the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment about the poll or the program’s revival.
