WASHINGTON — The White House announced Monday that its investigation into the U.S. airstrike on an Iranian elementary school has moved from a temporary state of uncertainty into a formal, permanent designation of “resolved unknowing.” The strike, which killed more than 150 people and leveled a school full of children, will now never be fully understood, officials said, because the moment for understanding has passed.
At a Pentagon briefing, Lt. Col. Janine Reeves described the shift as a natural evolution. “Five months ago, we didn’t know what happened,” she said. “Now we know that we will never know. That’s a form of closure the American people can count on.” Reeves confirmed the strike’s targeting package had been “flawlessly executed,” though she could not confirm what the target actually was.
The Leather-Faced Piss Bag addressed the matter briefly during a press availability. “I don’t think anybody’s going to ever be able to say what happened there,” he said. “If they don’t know by now, and as of a couple of weeks ago they didn’t know, then that’s just how it is. Things like that happen in war.” He then pivoted to a discussion of Tomahawk missile capabilities, which he called “very beautiful.”
The airstrike flattened the Shohada-ye-Manab school in March. A declassified satellite photo later showed a playground before the strike and a crater the size of a city block after. More than two dozen senators have demanded an unclassified version of the Pentagon’s findings. Each request has received a reply directing them to a website that reads “Under Review.” The site has not been updated since April.
Inside the Pentagon, the investigation’s final report was drafted, approved, and then saved in a file format no longer supported by the Department of Defense’s computer systems. A leaked memo described the file as “inaccessible and, for all practical purposes, lost to history.” When asked about the memo, a department spokesperson said recovering the data would require “resources better spent on future operations.”
On Fox News, the mood shifted. Hosts ran montages of the former president claiming victory in Iran more than 50 times. Retired generals on the network’s payroll said the United States was now “drifting” between bombing and declaring peace. One compared the strategy to a person trying to put out a fire with gasoline and then celebrating the heat.
The Pentagon’s accountability process has been praised internally for its efficiency. A separate review found that the entire chain of command involved in the strike had been promoted. The officer who filed the original after-action report now holds a position overseeing document retention.
