It has been more than 100 days since the United States struck an elementary school in Minab, Iran, and killed at least 175 people, most of them children.
According to a New York Times report, American officials knew within days that the U.S. had hit the school with a Tomahawk missile, and an investigation has reportedly found that outdated targeting data caused the school to be mistaken for part of an adjacent Iranian military base. Yet the U.S. still has not released its findings or publicly explained what happened.
Asked recently about the strike, President Trump responded, “Some mistakes are made. War is nasty.” His response was revealing not only for its callousness, but for its evasion. The government has known for months that it hit a school full of children. It still refuses to own what it did before the public.
Recent war powers votes show that some legislators understand the dangers of unchecked executive force. The House and Senate recently cast ballots to limit Trump’s authority to continue military action against Iran without congressional approval, but the Senate subsequently abandoned that check on the president. That reversal shows how fragile congressional oversight has become, just when it is needed most.
Minab matters beyond the horror of the strike itself. If the reporting is accurate, this was not simply the fog of war obscuring a tragic outcome. The U.S. reportedly relied on outdated intelligence. Information that the site appeared to include a school was available but apparently did not reach those responsible for targeting. The administration still has not publicly explained how that happened or who, if anyone, has been held responsible.
Those facts demand answers: Why was the intelligence outdated? Why did information about the school not reach the targeting process? Who, if anyone, has been relieved, disciplined or referred for prosecution? Those questions do not presume criminality. They presume that children killed by the U.S. deserve more than the passive voice of “mistakes are made.”
Accountability is not only about punishment after the fact. It is a control on power. It tells presidents, commanders, agents and officials that if they use lethal force, they need to be ready to explain it. A mistake that kills children does not reduce the government’s duty to answer. It increases it.
Across the government, this administration is weakening that control. The cases are not identical, but the pattern is: The government kills people, then controls the evidence, the law, the investigation or the public record.
At sea, the administration has turned alleged drug trafficking into a target set for the U.S. military, killing more than 200 people. Even if the people on those boats were trafficking drugs, that offense does not carry a death sentence. The administration has not publicly shown why those people could not be intercepted, arrested or tried. It has not explained why the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific have become a battlefield. It has not provided the evidence that justified killing rather than law enforcement. And still, the killing continues without public accounting.
In Minneapolis, federal immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens, during the administration’s immigration crackdown in January. The federal government has offered no public accounting that would let citizens judge why those shootings were lawful. Minnesota had to sue the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security for evidence it said it needed to conduct its own investigation. If the shootings were justified, the government should want the evidence examined. Instead, it has fought to control who can see it.
In immigration detention, the pattern is no less serious. Reuters has reported that the death rate of ICE detainees has more than doubled since January 2025 and 50 people have died. ICE is also ending a policy requiring the agency to report and investigate deaths that occur within 30 days after release from custody. If the deaths that have occurred were unavoidable, the government should show why. If they were caused by neglect or abuse, the public deserves to know that too.
These deaths are not the same, but they reveal the same trend. People are dead, the government knows more than it will say and the public is asked to trust the very institution whose power caused the deaths.
This does more than deny justice for the dead. It endangers the living. A government that will hide the evidence, defend the action, delay the findings and face no consequence shifts the boundaries around its use of lethal power. The next commander, agent or official has even less reason to hesitate. The next mistake becomes easier to excuse. The next unlawful act becomes easier to carry out and easier to bury.
That danger is especially grave in an administration that treats restraint as weakness, legality as an obstacle to lethality and protest as domestic terrorism. When political leaders defend federal violence before the facts are known, they are not merely commenting on events. They are telling armed officials what will be forgiven.
The Trump administration has shown that it will not own the human consequences of its own power. Accountability must be imposed from outside the executive branch. “Trust us” is not enough. The administration cannot be left as the sole judge of deaths caused by its agents, its policies, its targeting decisions and its detention systems.
Congress must require mandatory accounting whenever federal force or federal custody leaves someone dead and demand answers for the deaths federal power has already caused. Preserve the evidence. Give lawful investigators access. Disclose the legal authority to relevant committees. Release completed reports publicly wherever possible, with classified findings briefed in detail. Put officials and commanders under oath. Impose consequences where warranted.
Some deaths will prove tragic but lawful. Some officers and commanders will deserve public exoneration. But others will demand discipline, removal or prosecution. The point is to prevent the administration from deciding alone which deaths count, which facts remain hidden and which officials never have to answer.
A government that answers only to itself is not accountable. It is claiming impunity. None of us should accept that claim.
Jon Duffy is a retired naval officer. He writes about leadership and democracy.
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