Military says Army ignored plea for more medical support before deadly attack on Kuwait base

The U.S. military asked for more medical support in the weeks before the deadly Iranian strike on its air base in Kuwait, but they were ignored, the military told CBS News. Some survivors of the attack also said that at least one soldier who was killed would have been saved if there were medical supplies in the area.

Military accounts suggest the Pentagon did not adequately prepare American personnel for a retaliatory strike by Iran. he killed six US service members and 20 were injured. It was the deadliest attack on US troops since the start of the Iran war, and the worst since 2021.

“This was a failure,” said Major Stephen Ramsbottom in an interview with CBS News. He said he believed the Master Sergeant Nicole Amor he could have survived his injuries if there had been a doctor, a first aid station or more than one ambulance at the post.

“He could have been saved,” he said. “He fought all the way and tried to stay alive.”

Ramsbottom told CBS News that he expected dozens of rescuers to rush to treat the dozens of injured people pulled from the rubble, but found that no one was coming.

“I wanted to see like a line of ambulances coming at us or something,” said Ramsbottom, who was with the Army’s 103rd Sustainment Command in the forward operating area of ​​Kuwait. “And there was no such thing. It was like, man, we are alone.”

Ramsbottom is one of eight reserve soldiers who disputed the Pentagon’s account of the incident during an interview with CBS News. Soldiers he previously told CBS News they remain unprotected from the drone attack despite intelligence indicating that Iran had targeted its position in Kuwait.

According to two soldiers who did not wish to be named, the request to the leadership for additional resources before the strike focused on the number of health workers and the availability and availability of medical supplies.

One survivor of the drone strike, Master Sergeant Ann Marie Carrier, said the military had not planned a mass casualty event, and there had never been a run or drill before the start of the Iran campaign, called Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon.

“We had no training,” Carrier told CBS News. Like Ramsbottom, he described the chaotic scene after the explosion in which soldiers had to divert passenger vans and insist on finding a local hospital in Kuwait to treat the wounded.

“Surely there was no reason for something like this to happen,” he said.

In a statement, a Pentagon spokesman said the department had taken “extraordinary measures” to protect US troops before and during Operation Epic Fury.

“No program is ever going to end, but the allegations that show a blatant disregard for the safety of our troops are baseless and inaccurate,” wrote Capt. Tim Hawkins of US Central Command.

Hawkins said the investigation into the attack in Kuwait is ongoing.

Carrier said he felt disappointed in his leadership of the Movement. “It’s sad, it’s disappointing,” she said.

“He was fighting”

Early in the morning before the March 1 attack, alarms went off warning the approximately 80-100 soldiers at the Port of Shuaiba to take cover in a cement basement. An Iranian ballistic missile flew overhead. But at around 9:15 am, there was a very clear sound. Ramsbottom was at his desk when the plane crashed through the tin roof of the workplace, sprayed shrapnel in all directions, and lodged a piece of glass in the back of his head.

“It got dark,” he explained. “I heard a loud noise and hit the ground.”

Two and a half months after the attack, Mthwali remembered the lights suddenly going out, the walls closing in on him, and the smell of red blood. He was seated next to Amor.

“When I stood up, I knew I started screaming his name right away,” said Carrier who described Amor as his best friend. “He was my yin and yang.”

Carrier says Amor was still breathing when they put him in the passenger van. Ramsbottom says the doctor joined them in the van, but he didn’t have the equipment to stop Amor.

“He needed treatment for his airway,” Ramsbottom said. “It’s like he’s fighting.”

When they arrived at the emergency room of Adan Hospital, south of Kuwait City, Amor was no longer breathing. He died in hospital.

“I think if he would have gotten an ambulance, I think he would have lived,” he said.

Ramsbottom said he realizes the details may be painful for Amor’s family, but said he is speaking out to avoid future wrongdoing.

“It’s a lesson we learned,” he said. “There may be other units in this situation in the future. And if they plan properly, they could save more lives than we saved.”

“We were told: Don’t worry about protection”

About one week before the launch of Operation Epic Fury, twelve members of the 103rd from Camp Arifjan, the main American base south of Kuwait City, were ordered to move to the Port of Shuaiba, a small military base on the southern coast of Kuwait.

The command post at the Port of Shuaiba resembled buildings that were common during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – before the outbreak of the drone war. Steel-reinforced concrete barriers known as T-walls surrounded the building. These types of barriers are designed to protect service members from mortar or rocket fire but do not provide protection from air attack.

U.S. intelligence agencies warned in early January that Iran would attack the facility, multiple sources told CBS News. Ramsbottom, a soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he raised security concerns with his senior leadership.

In operational and intelligence meetings beginning about two weeks before the strike, the military began to ask for more protection.

“We were told: Don’t worry about protection,” he said.

The day after the attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the Iranian jet as a “squirter” – saying it had circled to protect a strong wing inside Kuwait.

But Ramsbottom is one of the few survivors who disputed Hegseth’s explanation.

“We had no surface protection to prevent anything from falling on us,” Ramsbottom said. “We had a tin roof. That’s all we had.”