The Hearing and Who Is Testifying
Starting Wednesday, March 18, the US Congress is holding its annual worldwide threats hearings. This year, the timing could not be more charged. The country is three weeks into Operation Epic Fury, an active military campaign against Iran launched February 28 together with Israel.
Scheduled to appear before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and FBI Director Kash Patel, along with officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
On paper, these are routine oversight hearings. In practice, they are anything but. Lawmakers on both sides want answers to specific, uncomfortable questions that the administration has so far not answered in public.
The School Strike: What Congress Actually Wants to Know
The central issue is Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran. On the first day of the war, February 28, a missile struck the school on a Saturday morning when it was in session with children aged 7 to 12. Preliminary Pentagon findings, cited by the Associated Press, indicate over 165 people were killed, with the majority reported to be pupils.
The AP reported, citing a person familiar with the preliminary investigation, that US Central Command relied on target coordinates using outdated data from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Satellite imagery reviewed by NPR showed the school had been physically separated from an adjacent Iranian Revolutionary Guard base sometime between 2013 and 2016. Yet the target list apparently still tagged the site as a military building.
Video footage that surfaced later showed what weapons experts, cited by multiple outlets, identified as a Tomahawk cruise missile striking the compound. The Tomahawk is a US-made weapon. Among the parties to this conflict, US forces are the only confirmed operators of the system.
Trump initially attributed the strike to Iran in public remarks, then told reporters he was not certain, and subsequently said he would accept whatever the Pentagon's investigation concluded, according to AP reporting. The investigation remains ongoing. More than 120 Democratic members of Congress have since written to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding answers, asking specifically whether artificial intelligence tools including the Maven Smart System were used in target selection and whether any human being verified the target before the strike was authorised.
The letter also flagged that the Pentagon's Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, a congressionally created body designed to reduce civilian harm in military operations, was significantly reduced by Hegseth shortly after he took office. Forty-five senators separately wrote to ask whether those reductions contributed to the deaths at Minab.
This is what Gabbard and Ratcliffe are walking into on Wednesday.
Intelligence That Does Not Match the War's Justification
Beyond the school strike, Congress is also expected to press on two specific intelligence assessments that, according to multiple reports, raise questions about the administration's stated justification for entering the war.
One assessment, cited by multiple outlets, reportedly concluded that US strikes are unlikely to produce regime change in Tehran. That finding, if confirmed, would complicate a central argument the administration has used to build public support for Operation Epic Fury.
A second assessment reportedly cast doubt on whether Iran was actively preparing to strike first, which was among the stated triggers for launching the operation on February 28. If accurate, that assessment would bring the intelligence basis for the war's timing into direct congressional scrutiny.
Gabbard, whose office oversees the intelligence community, has so far been notably measured in her public remarks. When asked about the strikes, she stated on social media that the question of whether Iran posed a threat was "up to Trump" to determine. She did not offer her own assessment. That framing may face sharper scrutiny under direct congressional questioning.
Kash Patel and the FBI Question
The accountability questions facing Gabbard and Ratcliffe extend to the domestic front as well. FBI Director Kash Patel's appearance Wednesday will mark his first public Capitol Hill showing in weeks. The more substantive issue, however, is the FBI's operational capacity to detect and prevent attacks inside the United States while an active war against Iran continues. The Department of Homeland Security has issued warnings about potential lone-wolf and cyberattacks since the strikes began. Reported incidents at a Michigan synagogue and a Virginia university have added weight to those warnings.
Parts of DHS remain unfunded due to a congressional spending dispute. The question lawmakers are expected to put to Patel is whether the bureau's internal reorganisation under his leadership has created any gaps in domestic threat detection at a moment when the external threat environment is, by the administration's own assessment, elevated.
Editorial View
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Santhosh Vishwamitra
Accountability Is Not Partisan. It Is the Job.
Based on current reporting, the core facts are not widely disputed. Preliminary Pentagon findings, as reported by AP and Military.com, indicate a US missile struck a school in Minab using target data that was reportedly outdated by close to a decade. The office created specifically to reduce civilian harm in such operations had been significantly reduced before the war began. That characterisation comes from the Pentagon's own preliminary investigation, not from outside critics.
Congressional oversight in response to these findings is not a political position. It is a constitutional function. The administration may dispute specific conclusions. But the questions themselves, given over 165 reported deaths at a school, are not ones any administration can reasonably decline to answer.
The intelligence community faces serious questions about its public credibility. When assessments reportedly known before the war began appear to conflict with the administration's stated justification for launching it, the heads of that community owe Congress, and the public, a direct account of what they assessed, what they communicated, and when.
The Bottom Line
Three weeks into a war, with a school full of children struck by a missile fired on outdated data, Congress is asking the questions it should ask. Whether the administration answers them honestly is the real test this week.
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