The US is covering up an investigation into a strike that killed nearly 200 people, mostly children, at an Iranian girls' school on the first day of the Iran war — a moral and strategic disaster.

• Reporting says commanders ignored warnings that the intelligence was years out of date and rushed the strike anyway to build a long target list fast.
• Satellite images showed the site had been turned from part of a base into a school, but nobody checked before hitting it.
• Trump now says we may never know what happened, even suggesting the images could be AI-fakes, and won't commit to releasing the report.
• Staff whose job was to prevent civilian deaths had been cut by more than 90%, leaving almost no one to catch the mistake.
• Iran treats the dead girls as national martyrs, hardening its stance and giving it the moral high ground in negotiations.

Outlook: The refusal to admit fault deepens the rift with Iran and signals no one will be held responsible, raising the odds of more civilian strikes.