U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) accused President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday of treating war “as a game” and deliberately covering up civilian deaths caused by U.S. military operations, pointing to a newly disclosed Pentagon report that found no civilians were killed in the administration’s campaign of lethal boat strikes.
The Post
In a post on X published at 2:44 p.m. on August 17, 2026, Van Hollen wrote in full:
“Trump & Hegseth think war is a game. They don’t care about preventing civilian harm. From tearing apart the office responsible for minimizing such harm to producing this cover-up report, they are whitewashing the killing of civilians.”
What Prompted the Post
Van Hollen’s post shared an August 11, 2026, investigation from The Intercept reporting that the War Department had quietly delivered its unreleased annual civilian casualty report to members of Congress. Two government officials described the findings to the outlet, with one calling the document a “total whitewash.” The report covers U.S. attacks in Iran, Somalia, Yemen, and the ongoing campaign of boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Boat Strikes: Report Finds No Civilian Deaths Despite More Than 220 Killed
According to the officials who spoke to The Intercept, the Pentagon’s review of its 2025 operations concluded that no civilians were killed in the administration’s campaign of strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels — despite the U.S. having killed more than 120 people in those strikes last year alone, in attacks that legal experts have characterized as extrajudicial killings. The administration has repeatedly labeled the boat strike victims, who now number more than 220 in total, as “narcoterrorists” without presenting supporting evidence. A classified briefing last fall reportedly included testimony from a senior Joint Staff officer suggesting some victims of the initial September 2, 2025, strike may instead have been trafficking victims.
Yemen Casualty Figures Disputed as “Lowball”
The same Pentagon accounting, known as the 1057 report under Section 1057 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, found that U.S. strikes during 2025’s Operation Rough Rider campaign against Yemen’s Houthi government killed 153 civilians and wounded nearly 250. Independent monitors dispute those figures; the Yemen Data Project has documented at least 238 civilian deaths and 467 injuries from the same campaign. One strike alone, on an immigrant detention center that killed 68 Ethiopian civilians and no combatants, was previously documented by Amnesty International.
Fifteen Cases Still Unresolved
Officials told The Intercept that three Yemen-related incidents were found to have “likely” harmed civilians, while 15 additional attacks remain under review more than a year after the strikes occurred. Under Section 1057, the Pentagon is obligated to provide Congress and the public with data on civilian harm, mitigation efforts, and after-action assessments.
Iran War Casualties Not Yet Counted
Because the report only covers calendar year 2025, it excludes the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, launched February 28, 2026. Airwars, a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group, recorded reports of civilian harm nearly every day between the war’s start and the first ceasefire on April 8. The World Health Organization had put Iran’s death toll at 3,375 before that ceasefire later collapsed. One government official told The Intercept that the volume of civilian harm cases from the Iran war will “dwarf” the Yemen caseload once investigators begin working through it.
A Civilian Harm Team Reduced to One Person
Officials pointed to staffing as central to the delays: CENTCOM’s civilian harm mitigation team, once staffed by 10 people, has reportedly been reduced to a single individual. One official questioned how the Pentagon could process hundreds of expected Iran-related cases when its remaining staffer has yet to finish adjudicating Yemen. CENTCOM has publicly maintained that only one civilian casualty investigation is currently active from the Iran war — tied to a strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, that killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Admiral Brad Cooper, CENTCOM’s commander, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May that the incident stemmed from more than 13,000 munitions dropped during the campaign.
Van Hollen’s Monthslong Push on Civilian Harm
Monday’s post is the latest in a sustained campaign by Van Hollen against the administration’s civilian harm record. In April 2025, he joined Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) in a letter to Hegseth demanding answers after strikes on Yemen’s Ras Isa fuel terminal reportedly killed more than 70 civilians, warning that the administration was dismantling the mitigation procedures required to meet its legal obligations.
Calls to Fire Hegseth
In March 2026, Van Hollen and Warren publicly called for Hegseth’s firing over civilian casualties, with Van Hollen saying the secretary had “dismantled the whole system” built to prevent civilian harm after Hegseth referred to established rules of engagement as “stupid.”
A Formal Investigation Into Hegseth’s Role
In April 2026, Van Hollen and Warren led nine senators in opening a formal investigation into Hegseth’s role in weakening civilian harm prevention programs, citing more than 1,700 civilian deaths and strikes on more than 20 schools and a dozen healthcare facilities since the Iran war began. The senators wrote that “the high human toll of this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” and called on the administration to “immediately end the war in Iran and fully restore Congressionally authorized programs and staffing to mitigate civilian harm.” The letter also cited Hegseth’s public threats of “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in Iran as a potential violation of the military’s own Law of War Manual.
Van Hollen Has Raised the Possibility of War Crimes
Separately, in a March 2026 CNN interview, Van Hollen said targeting civilian infrastructure “is a war crime under international law,” drawing a comparison to Russia’s conduct in Ukraine and warning that Trump and Hegseth “must be held accountable” if the comparison held.
An Inspector General Report and a Gutted Center of Excellence
The senators’ concerns have been echoed by the Pentagon’s own watchdog. A May 2026 inspector general report described the department’s civilian protection efforts as largely “inactive,” concluding that cuts under Hegseth have left the United States unable to adequately protect civilians in conflict zones or track harm once it occurs. A separate unreleased report obtained by The Intercept found that the War Department’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence — its premier office for preventing civilian casualties — saw its staff cut from 40 people in January 2025 to just nine by the end of the year.
Pentagon’s Response
Asked by The Intercept about the officials’ characterizations of the report, a Pentagon spokesperson said only that the department would submit its annual civilian casualty report “in the coming months” and that it had “nothing to preview or announce at the moment.”
What Comes Next
With the Iran war’s civilian casualty count still under investigation and CENTCOM’s mitigation staff reduced to a single person, lawmakers including Van Hollen have signaled that oversight of the administration’s civilian harm record is likely to remain a flashpoint on Capitol Hill in the months ahead.