The military questioned the use of a temporary office in Kuwait where US soldiers were killed

America’s first service members to die in US-Israel war with Iran were killed in an Iranian drone attack on a temporary office complex in Kuwait, three U.S. military officials with direct knowledge of the Iranian attack told CBS News.

At least six were Americans you have been killed in a strike on a strategic operations center in the port of Shuaiba in Kuwait, one of several US-allied countries in the Persian Gulf region that have faced intense Iranian missile and drone attacks since the US and Israel began striking Iran early Saturday. US Central Command publicly confirmed the deaths.

The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said that the deadly strike was caused by a powerful Iranian weapon that was able to protect the air and fortifications of the operation center.

“You’ve got air defenses, and there’s more coming, and you’ve hit most of them,” Hegseth said during a news conference at the Pentagon. “Every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately, we call it a squirter, that makes its way. And in that particular case, it happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but these are powerful weapons.”

But three U.S. military officials questioned the assertion that the structure was sufficiently fortified. They told CBS News that the operations center was a triple-wide trailer that had been converted into office space — a common setup at US bases overseas.

The trailer’s only defenses were T-walls, which are steel-reinforced concrete barriers that can range from 6 to 12 feet tall, used to protect soldiers from explosions, rocket attacks and shrapnel, military officials said.

But the T-walls could not protect the area from the top strike. Two officials told CBS News that the strike appeared to hit people at the top of the building.

Three officials also told CBS News, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, that before the attack, there were discussions on the ground about whether the strategic operations center in question should not be used, as it concentrated many US troops in an area that was not secure.

A preliminary assessment of the damage from the strikes suggests that an operations center in Kuwait was hit by a drone, according to three US military officials with direct knowledge of the Iranian attack. It is not clear what type is involved, but Iran often uses Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones.

The fire engulfed the buildings, making it difficult to find the bodies after the strike, officials told CBS News.

Two of the three sources told CBS News that they did not recall hearing the warning sirens often associated with anti-aircraft battery systems designed to detect enemy ordnance that ultimately killed service members. They also said a warning siren had been activated a week before the strike at the strategic operations center, but in previous incidents, some drones were already inside the base before the siren went off.

In addition, two sources said that there is no US anti-aircraft system, weapons and ammunition in the port of Shuaiba that can be used to bring down incoming drones or other lethal weapons. Kuwait had interceptors in place, but it is unclear if those were employed.

Requests were made for more capabilities to defeat incoming drones, but those additional resources never arrived, the two sources said. Another source told CBS News: “We really didn’t have the ability to defeat the drone.”

“I’m sorry for their families’ loss,” one of the sources told CBS News. “They were good people who did what their nation asked of them.”

CNN first reported on the six members who were killed in the port of Shuaiba and that it seems that they had no prior warning. CBS News is the first to report on the nature of the law that affected the operation center, and that some US soldiers feel that the center’s defenses were inadequate and perhaps that the operation center that was established should not have been used at all.

Asked for comment, the Pentagon referred CBS News to earlier statements by US Central Command about the dead service members.

After the story was published, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell disputed CBS News’ reporting, writing in a post on X: “The Intelligence Operations Center is not an ‘office area.’ He also said, “All measures have been taken to protect our soldiers – at all levels.”

In addition to the six killed in Kuwait, at least 18 members were seriously injured as of Monday morning during the ongoing battle, called Operation Epic Fury, a spokesperson for the US Central Command told CBS News.

Hegseth called the service members who were killed “the best in America.”

“May we prosecute what is left of this project in a way that will respect them,” he said.