Pentagon Shrinks Civilian Oversight Staff While Expanding AI Assessments

U.S. military operations in multiple theaters now rely on fewer dedicated personnel to track civilian harm even as the Pentagon deploys new AI tools to speed assessments of potential strikes.

The Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, established in 2023, saw its staff fall from 40 people in January 2025 to nine by year-end, according to a report dated April 4, 2026, that has not yet been posted publicly. Two current defense officials confirmed the reduced level has held steady. The remaining staff has been barred from examining certain incidents, including the February attack on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran.

At the same time the center’s workforce contracted, the Pentagon accelerated use of the Maven Smart System, an AI platform developed with Palantir, to build a prototype assistant on the Army’s AskSage enterprise platform. During one training exercise the assistant cut the time required to produce civilian-environment assessments by 97 percent, the report states. Several additional Army units have since requested access.

The same report records the termination of the CHMR Data Management Platform project, leaving no centralized repository for civilian-harm information. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper stated in May that the command had only one active civilian-casualty investigation despite expending 13,629 munitions; months later the command reported no new updates. Airwars, a U.K.-based monitoring group, has documented hundreds of civilian-casualty incidents in Iran since the start of operations there.

Department-wide budgets for civilian-harm mitigation and response were reduced in fiscal year 2026. The 10-person team at CENTCOM was cut to one person; U.S. Southern Command lacked any mechanism to receive civilian-casualty reports after operations in Venezuela. A letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and nine other Democratic lawmakers warned that the reductions leave the Pentagon unable to meet congressionally mandated responsibilities. A Pentagon inspector general report issued in May described the remaining efforts as largely inactive.

Former center chief Wes Bryant said the residual staff operates with little institutional influence. Current and former officials quoted in the report described the center’s input on operations such as the Yemen campaign codenamed Rough Rider as nominal. The White House and Pentagon have not provided on-record comment on the staffing changes or the AI prototype beyond a statement that the 2025 annual report is expected this summer.