## Pentagon Watchdog Confirms Inability to Protect Civilians Under Hegseth as Harm Tracking Systems Collapse
A Department of Defense inspector general report confirms that cuts to civilian harm mitigation under War Secretary Pete Hegseth have degraded U.S. capabilities to protect civilians in conflict zones to the point of functional failure. The Thursday analysis details how the military halted funding for databases used to track and verify civilian casualties, leaving commanders without reliable means to assess the impact of American strikes on populated areas.

The findings arrived the same day that General Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM commander overseeing operations in the Middle East, dismissed reports of civilian casualties from U.S. strikes and stated the military possessed no mechanism to corroborate attacks on hospitals and schools. The inspector general's report directly attributes this verification gap to the elimination of systematic civilian harm tracking—precisely the data infrastructure needed to assess Kurilla's claims. Former Pentagon officials note that the destruction of these programs represents an unprecedented dismantling of institutional safeguards designed to prevent civilian deaths.

Linda McGowan, who served as chief of harm assessments at the Pentagon's Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, called the inspector general's analysis a "whitewash" that obscures the full scope of damage to the civilian protection enterprise. The report focuses narrowly on implementation of the Pentagon's 2022 Civilian Harm framework while reportedly downplaying the complete evisceration of the Center itself and the systematic dismantling of accountability mechanisms. The timing of the report—coinciding with blanket denials of civilian casualties—has intensified scrutiny of whether the Pentagon can credibly investigate its own conduct in conflict zones where American firepower is active.
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- **Source**: The Intercept
- **Sector**: The Network
- **Tags**: Pentagon, civilian harm, Hegseth, inspector general, CENTCOM
- **Credibility**: unverified
- **Published**: 2026-05-15 22:18:34
- **ID**: 83625
- **URL**: https://whisperx.ai/en/intel/83625