NEED TO KNOW

• Army survivors of the March 1 Kuwait attack that killed six soldiers told CBS News their unit "was unprepared to provide any defense for itself" — directly contradicting Hegseth's description
• Hegseth called the drone a "squirter" that penetrated a "fortified" position; a survivor said "painting a picture that 'one squeaked through' is a falsehood"
• The attack on the 103rd Sustainment Command at Port Shuaiba killed six Army Reserve soldiers and wounded more than 20 — the deadliest single strike on U.S. forces since the war began

PORT SHUAIBA, KUWAIT / WASHINGTON (TDR) — Army survivors of the deadliest Iranian attack on U.S. forces in Operation Epic Fury have publicly disputed the Pentagon's account of the March 1 strike for the first time, telling CBS News their unit was left dangerously exposed — not fortified — when six soldiers were killed and more than 20 wounded at a port facility outside Kuwait City.

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The big picture: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon the drone was a "squirter" — military slang for a projectile that slips through air defenses — that hit a "fortified" tactical operations center. Survivors say neither claim is accurate. The discrepancy puts the administration's framing of American wartime casualties under direct challenge from the people who lived through the attack.

• The six soldiers killed were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, an Army Reserve unit based in Des Moines, Iowa; they were among the first Americans killed in the war
• The attack at Port Shuaiba occurred on the first day of Iranian retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes, March 1 — within hours of Operation Epic Fury's launch

Driving the news: Speaking publicly for the first time in an exclusive interview with CBS News, members of the targeted unit offered a ground-level account that contradicts the Pentagon's narrative on two specific points.

• Survivor, speaking to CBS News — "Painting a picture that 'one squeaked through' is a falsehood. I want people to know the unit … was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position."
• CBS News previously reported in March that three U.S. military officials described the operations center as a triple-wide trailer made into office space, with only T-wall concrete barriers as protection — not a hardened military installation
• Two service members went missing after the strike and were later found under rubble; more than 30 were hospitalized, including one sent to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and 12 to Walter Reed

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE THE DUPREE REPORT

What they're saying: The split between the Pentagon's public account and the survivor testimony is direct and on record.

• Hegseth at a Pentagon briefing, March 3 — "You have air defenses, and a lot's coming in, and you hit most of it. Every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately, we call it a squirter, that makes its way through. And in that particular case, it happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but these are powerful weapons."
• Survivor to CBS News — the unit "was unprepared to provide any defense for itself"
• Sgt. First Class Cory Hicks, a survivor who spoke earlier to KSTP — "You just have to try to prepare your mind for that, and I don't think any of us were really prepared for it, just because we were in Kuwait. There hasn't been war in Kuwait for over 30 years. You know, we thought we were safe."

Yes, but: The Pentagon has maintained throughout the war that air defenses protected U.S. personnel and that casualties reflect the difficulty of total intercept — not a failure of force protection. Crucially, CBS News reported in March that the six soldiers were placed at Port Shuaiba as part of Hegseth's "get off the X" strategy — moving troops away from known Iranian target locations — meaning their position was itself a consequence of Pentagon planning, not an oversight.

Between the lines: The survivor testimony lands on ceasefire day — and the timing matters. Hegseth spent Wednesday declaring "decisive military victory" while these soldiers were giving a competing account of what the first day of that war actually looked like on the ground. The "squirter" framing minimizes the attack as an anomaly in an otherwise effective defense. The survivors' framing — "unprepared," "not a fortified position" — suggests something more systemic. That distinction is exactly what a future congressional investigation or inspector general inquiry would turn on.

• The Intercept has separately reported what a defense official called a "casualty cover-up" — documenting that the Pentagon's official count undercounts U.S. dead and wounded, including a soldier whose death was acknowledged by a congressman but absent from Pentagon rolls

What's next:

• CBS News has not published the full survivor account; additional details may emerge as reporting continues
• No congressional hearing or inspector general investigation into the Kuwait attack has been announced; the survivor testimony may accelerate that
• The Pentagon has not responded to the new account; any official response will be the next news beat on this story

Six Army Reserve soldiers were killed at a facility their surviving unit members say had no defenses — while the Pentagon called it fortified. Who decides which account becomes the official record of how they died?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from CBS News, CBS News (March fortification reporting), CBS News (Kuwait injuries), CBS News (Iran surveillance memo), ABC News (Hicks interview), The Intercept, and The Hill.

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