Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged Friday that the U.S. military had opened a comprehensive investigation into the attack on an Iranian elementary school. Yet seconds after he tacitly acknowledged evidence indicating America’s role in the bloodshed, Hegseth insisted that the U.S. “never” targets civilians during foreign conflicts.Responding to a reporter’s query about the February 28 incident, which left at least 175 dead—most of them children, Hegseth said that the department would not let leaks to the press “lead us or force our hand into indicating” what occurred, “because the truth matters.”He did, however, reveal that U.S. Central Command “has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation.”“The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident and the investigating officer is from outside CENTCOM and is a—is a general officer,” Hegseth said. “But I will note to this group and to the world, there’s only one entity in this conflict between us and Iran that never targets civilians, literally never targets civilians.”In the weeks since the attack, a growing mountain of evidence has suggested that the U.S. military was responsible for the strike in Minab, a city in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan. A U.S. assessment report leaked last week found that the strike was “likely” the fault of an American Tomahawk missile. It noted that American forces did not intentionally target the school and could have hit it in error. One hypothesis included the possibility that the U.S. had relied on dated intelligence that incorrectly assumed the school was part of an Iranian military base.“The Pentagon does not typically conduct such investigations of another country’s military operations,” reported The Washington Post.