'Total embarrassment': Officials say Trump relied on false intel to spin school bombing
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U.S. President Donald Trump, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth aboard Air Force One U.S., March 7, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
The United States remains under a cloud of international criticism after it bombed a girls' school in Iran and tried to blame it on Iran itself. Now it's being revealed that the CIA gave President Donald Trump the false intelligence, but made it clear after 24 hours that it was a U.S. bomb. Still, Trump ran with the allegation that it was Iran that hit their own people.
According to The Guardian, the CIA believed that the missile may not have been from the U.S. because "the fins appeared to be positioned too low for it to be a Tomahawk cruise missile." But they quickly realized it was, in fact, a Tomahawk missile from the U.S., and the sources said they briefed the president on the reality.
The truth didn't matter to Trump, however, as he "had already settled on the explanation that Iran was responsible for the strike." Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refused to say one way or another so as not to contradict Trump. Instead, he told reporters that it was under investigation.
Trump's biggest problem with the lie is that he accepted the reality that it was a Tomahawk, and falsely said that Iran had such missiles when it is "used only by the US and a handful of allies, including the U.K., Japan and Australia," the report explained.
“Giving Trump preliminary information is dangerous because he can turn it into a total embarrassment,” a former CIA officer told The Guardian. “If the principal asks you a question, the best thing to say is you don’t know. Knowing how hard it is to go back later to correct the record.”
Former intelligence members blame the briefers and Trump for the public embarrassment.
The most recent numbers show that at least 175 people, mostly children, were killed in the blast at the school.
The report said that the updated numbers mean that the strike is "one of the deadliest targeting errors in recent decades."
The investigation Hegseth referenced is trying to uncover why the intelligence claimed that it was a military target when it was well-known that it was a school. The Australian version of ABC News reported that it was even clear on Google Maps that the IRGC naval base was separated from the colorfully painted school by a large wall. The wall has been there since 2013. The school was converted sometime between 2013 and 2016, The Guardian said.
The Pentagon investigation has been focused on why the intelligence was outdated and whether it was double-checked.
International humanitarian law (IHL) is a set of rules designed to protect those who are not directly involved in the conflict. It includes aid workers, medical professionals, the sick, injured and children. The U.S. has signed and ratified Geneva Conventions of 1949. Breaking those rules is considered a war crime.
The Guardian explained that the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency look at imagery to build a "target database" using a program called Maven Smart System.
A former senior defense official explained that there are years of analysis that go into the system and "layers of oversight." However, once "entered into the database as a possible target, it may not necessarily be reviewed again until a strike is considered." The target list is generated by the system using Maven and "artificial intelligence tools such as Claude, Anthropic’s large language model," the report explained.
In late February, around the time Trump decided to go to war, he instructed all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's AI technology. PBS News reported at the time that Anthropic has long demanded that the government not use its system for "fully autonomous weapons systems" and mass surveillance.
On Feb. 23, five days before the bombing, Axios reported that the Pentagon and Elon Musk's AI company, Grok, had reached an agreement under which his AI tools would be used instead. xAI agreed to allow its system to be used for everything, including military and warrantless surveillance. So, it's unclear which systems were responsible for putting the girls' school on the target list.
The head of Centcom, Adm. Brad Cooper, told reporters last Wednesday the United States is “leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools" for the attacks.
The Washington Post reported last week that two Israeli officials claimed the girls' school "was not cross-checked or discussed with the Israel Defense Forces before it took place."
Human Rights Watch has called for a war crime investigation.