The letter is dated 12 March 2026 and addressed to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, with a copy to Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander of US Central Command. It was led by Representatives Sara Jacobs, Yassamin Ansari and Jason Crow; Bloomberg reported in September 2026 that more than 120 House Democrats signed. Its subject is civilian harm in Operation Epic Fury, the US operation in Iran, and it asks ten numbered questions with a response requested by 20 March 2026. It is the earliest congressional document to ask the Department directly whether AI was used to select a target that caused mass civilian casualties.
What the letter asserts
The letter opens on "reports of what appears to be the deadliest attack on civilians thus far: a girls' elementary school, where at least 175 civilians, many of them children, were reported killed and 100 children and staff wounded," and records that "The New York Times recently reported that the U.S. preliminary investigation found that the United States is responsible for this strike due to outdated targeting data." It cites "reportedly over 1,000 total civilian deaths already" and "a lack of clarity about the anticipated scale and duration of operations."
It restates the law-of-armed-conflict obligations to distinguish between civilians and combatants, ensure proportionality and take all feasible precautions, and names two departmental mechanisms it says represent recent improvement: the Department of Defense Instruction on Civilian Mitigation and Response and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. It states that US and Israeli strikes have hit "schools, hospitals, gymnasiums, public gathering spaces, and a UNESCO heritage site," and invokes the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas.
Four developments are cited as strain on civilian-protection institutions: budget reductions depriving commands including Central Command of resources to address civilian casualties; Hegseth's firing of senior military lawyers in February 2025; his statement of 2 March 2026 that there would be "No stupid rules of engagement"; and President Trump's declaration that "I don't need international law." The letter quotes General Joseph Votel, former Commander of Central Command: "If you cause so many civilian casualties and you cause so much civilian harm here, it can actually undermine the mission that the military has been sent in to do […] the benefit to be gained by supporting these [Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response] positions, I think it outweighs the movement of resources to other places."
The ten questions
- Whether US forces carried out the strikes on the school; the target and the reason for the decision; the assessed civilian-harm risk and the steps considered or taken to prevent harm.
- The military's assessment of civilian casualties, and whether the Department will investigate the strikes "as a possible war crime."
- "What is the role of artificial intelligence, if any, in selecting targets, assessing intelligence, and making legal determinations during Operation Epic Fury? If artificial intelligence is used, is it subject to human review and at what point? Was artificial intelligence, including the use of Maven Smart System, used to identify the Shajareh Tayyebeh school as a target? If so, did a human verify the accuracy of this target?"
- How congressionally mandated civilian-harm mitigation and response policies and institutions, including the Instruction and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, are being resourced, implemented and operationalized during the operation.
- What steps the Department is taking to prevent and mitigate civilian harm in planning and targeting.
- The process for target selection and review; whether red-teaming and civilian environment teams have been used, with an assessment of their success; and how many personnel are responsible for civilian harm mitigation and response in the operation.
- Planned responses to civilian-harm reports, including lessons learned and post-harm response to civilians.
- Whether the Department will commit to surging civilian-harm mitigation capabilities, with a plan and any resources required from Congress.
- Whether accessible channels exist for civilians to report alleged harm, and whether they are available "in Persian, Kurdish, and other major Iranian languages."
- How the Department is working with Israeli authorities to harmonize civilian-harm practices and policies.
Question 3 is the AI question. It is framed in three parts — the general role of AI across targeting, intelligence assessment and legal determination; whether human review applies and at what point; and whether Palantir's Maven Smart System specifically identified this target and whether a human verified it. Bloomberg reported on 18 September 2026 that the Pentagon has not answered such questions publicly, citing the ongoing investigation (Source: bloomberg.com).
Figures and naming
Two details differ between the letter and the later record. The letter's March 2026 casualty figures — "at least 175 civilians" killed and 100 wounded — are the contemporaneous reported numbers; the September 2026 Bloomberg account of the Pentagon's internal investigation gives more than 150 killed including at least 123 children. The letter spells the school "Shajareh Tayyebeh"; the Bloomberg account and the pages derived from it use "Shajarah Tayyebeh."
The letter cites the civilian-harm instruction twice with different numbers — "DOD-I 30001.7" in the second paragraph and "DoD-I 3000.17" in question 4. The instruction is DoDI 3000.17, Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response; the first is a typographical error in the letter.
"Operation Epic Fury" is the operation name the letter uses for the US campaign in Iran.
Provenance
Captured on 19 September 2026 from Representative Sara Jacobs's official House domain, at the URL Bloomberg's 18 September 2026 investigation links as the March 12 letter. The body of the letter — date, addressee, five paragraphs, ten numbered questions, closing and the copy line — extracts complete. The signature block does not: most signatures in the PDF are images, so the text layer carries some names once, some twice, and none for signatures that exist only as graphics. The signatory count of more than 120 comes from Bloomberg and cannot be confirmed from the text layer; the lead signatories are named in the file name and by Bloomberg, not in the extracted text. Names that do appear in the text layer include Adam Smith, Gregory W. Meeks (Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs), Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ted W. Lieu, Seth Moulton and Eugene Simon Vindman.
Relationships
- supports: DOD — Department of Defense (AI Deployer) — the Minab strike account and the Department's civilian-harm posture.
- related: Pete Hegseth — the addressee, and the subject of four of the letter's assertions.
- related: Palantir Technologies — Maven Smart System, named in question 3.
- related: Project Maven (Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team) — the Maven program and platform the letter asks about.
- supports: Autonomous Weapons — a congressional demand for human-verification disclosure in AI-assisted targeting.
- related: Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War (2026), Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War (Hegseth memorandum, 2026) — the AI acceleration policy in force at the time of the strike.