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Soldiers Asked for More Medical Support Before the Kuwait Attack.
Survivors of the Iranian drone strike that killed six US soldiers in Kuwait say the Army ignored requests for more medical resources weeks before the attack, and that at least one soldier who died could have been saved.
A composite of images shows the four Army Reserve soldiers who died in Operation Epic Fury on Sunday. From left to right, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor and Sgt. Declan J. Coady. (U.S. Army)
Major Stephen Ramsbottom was waiting for the ambulances to arrive. He stood in the rubble, head bleeding, and watched the road.
No ambulances came.
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"I wanted to see like a line of ambulances coming towards us or something," said Ramsbottom, who was with the Army's 103rd Sustainment Command at a forward operating base in Kuwait. "And there wasn't that. It was like, oh man, we're on our own."
Six US soldiers were killed in the Iranian drone strike on the Port of Shuaiba command post on March 1. Twenty more were wounded. It was the deadliest attack on American troops since the Iran war began.
Ramsbottom is one of eight soldiers from the reserve unit who have disputed the Pentagon's account of the incident in interviews with CBS News.
Their accounts point to one conclusion. The Army knew this was coming. And it did not prepare.
Here is what the soldiers say happened before the strike.
About one week before Operation Epic Fury launched, several dozen members of the 103rd stationed at Camp Arifjan were ordered to relocate to Port of Shuaiba, a smaller military outpost off Kuwait's southern coast. The command post was similar to structures commonplace during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, before the rise of drone warfare. Steel-reinforced concrete T-wall barriers surrounded the building, designed to shield soldiers from mortars or rockets. They offer no protection from aerial attacks.
US intelligence warned as early as January that Iran would attack the post, multiple sources told CBS News.
They knew. And still, when soldiers raised concerns at operations and intelligence meetings starting two weeks before the strike, they were told the same thing.
"We were told: Don't worry about protection," Ramsbottom said.
According to two soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity, the request to leadership for more resources focused specifically on the number of medical personnel and the availability and accessibility of medical supplies.
Those requests were ignored.
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Master Sergeant Nicole Amor was seated next to Master Sergeant Ann Marie Carrier when the drone hit. Carrier says she instantly started screaming Amor's name. Amor was still breathing when they loaded her into a passenger van because there were no ambulances.
Ramsbottom says a medic joined them in the van but did not have the supplies to stabilize Amor. "She needed her airway treated," Ramsbottom said. "Like, she was fighting."
As they arrived at Adan Hospital, south of Kuwait City, Amor was no longer breathing. She died at the hospital.
"She could have been saved," Ramsbottom said. "She fought the whole way and was trying to stay alive."
Carrier said the Army never planned for a mass casualty event. There were no run-throughs. No rehearsals. "We didn't have any training," she told CBS News. "There was really nothing in place for something like that to happen."
The day after the attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the Iranian drone as a squirter that slipped through the defenses of a fortified unit.
Ramsbottom disputed that directly. "We had no overhead protection to keep anything from falling on us," he said. "We had a tin roof. That's all we had."
In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said the department took extraordinary steps to protect US troops before and during Operation Epic Fury. "No plan is ever perfect, but accusations suggesting blatant disregard for the safety of our forces are unfounded and inaccurate," wrote Capt. Tim Hawkins of US Central Command. An investigation into the Kuwait attack is ongoing.
Eight survivors are now on record saying otherwise. One of them lost her best friend in the back of a passenger van because the ambulance never came.
Ramsbottom said he is speaking out to prevent future failures. "It's a lesson learned," he said. "There could be other units in this very similar situation in the future. And if they plan properly, they can save more lives than we saved."
Six soldiers are dead. The investigation is ongoing. And the people who asked for more protection before the attack are still waiting for someone in Washington to explain why they were told not to worry about it.
Editor's Note: The accounts from survivors of the Kuwait base attack raise serious questions about military preparedness, leadership accountability and the gap between what the Pentagon says happened and what the soldiers on the ground experienced. As the investigation continues, the families of the six soldiers killed deserve answers that match what the survivors are describing.
