Trump administration officials are facing mounting criticism from Democratic lawmakers and national security experts who accuse them of failing to protect U.S. service members and civilians in the Middle East.

At issue are the six service members who were killed by an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait. The military members were in what CBS News called a makeshift office space that had fortified walls but lacked a fortified roof and drone-identification capabilities.

Also at issue are the thousands of Americans in the Middle East who were told to evacuate after President Donald Trump launched his war with Israel against Iran. Online critics charge that the U.S. State Department offered them little assistance, and say that only after repeated urging did they begin to put a plan in place.

On Monday, Assistant Secretary of State Mora Namdar via a social media post urged Americans to exit several countries, despite reports of few commercial flights available. The U.S. State Department on Tuesday announced that embassies in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait would be closed indefinitely, as Politico reported.

“U.S. diplomats, as well as Democratic lawmakers, questioned why embassy closures and travel alerts for American citizens hadn’t been issued sooner, especially considering the U.S. spent weeks building up its military forces in the region,” Politico added. “Some Democrats cautioned that the conflict could turn into yet another ‘forever war,’ siphoning American resources to the Middle East indefinitely.”

U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) blasted the Trump administration on Tuesday.

“The last few days have made clear just how little thought President Trump and his administration put into keeping American service members, diplomats, their families, and civilians safe, despite moving one third of our Navy into the region in advance and allegedly preparing for war with Iran for months,” he said in a statement.

Senator Coons cited the six service members killed. He also noted that three U.S. embassies and one U.S. consulate “have been attacked, and our longtime partners in the region are running dangerously low on air defense munitions.”

“Thousands of American citizens and embassy personnel have been ordered to immediately leave the region and have been left largely on their own to do so. A core function of our foreign policy is to keep Americans safe. This administration’s failure to protect our soldiers, diplomats, and civilians in the region is a disgraceful dereliction of duty. Thus far, the president’s response to this reckless incompetence has simply been ‘that’s the way it is.’”

Responding to remarks U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made on Tuesday afternoon, urging Americans to evacuate, U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said: “The Administration made no secret of amassing military forces and equipment near Iran for weeks and weeks and weeks. Why didn’t you ask Americans to register with the @StateDept during that time?”

“Massive dereliction of duty,” Congressman Lieu charged. “Unacceptable lack of planning.”

Other critics blasted the administration as well.

National security expert Marc Polymeropoulos pointed to a report stating the U.S. embassy in Iraq ordered non-emergency government employees to evacuate.

“It’s stunning to me, having worked in embassies for years, how late this order has come,” he wrote. “Absolute negligence by Rubio, lack of planning and assessment by State. Nothing like previous conflicts. A first grader could have told u the embassy would be under significant threat from the immediate onset of hostilities.”

“True,” responded Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “These orders should have been given before the attack that everyone in the world knew was coming.”

“And the Trump should have been scrambling everything to get Americans out across the region before the bombs started dropping. This is a huge strategic planning failure. And risks the lives of countless civilians and American troops. The scope and scale of attacks and American casualties in next few weeks could make the 2021 fall of Kabul look small in comparison.”

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under fire after six U.S. service members lost their lives in an Iranian drone strike on what is being called a makeshift office space that had fortified walls but lacked a fortified ceiling.

The Americans “were killed in a strike on a tactical operations center at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait, one of several U.S.-allied countries in the Persian Gulf region that have faced intense Iranian missile and drone attacks since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran early Saturday,” CBS News reported, adding that “three U.S. military officials questioned the assertion that the building was adequately fortified.”

The three officials, “told CBS News … that prior to the attack, there were discussions on the ground about whether the tactical operations center in question should not have been used, as it concentrated too many U.S. troops in a location that wasn’t defendable.”

Two sources also told CBS News that “they did not recall hearing the warning sirens that are commonly associated with counter-battery systems designed to detect incoming enemy ordnance that ultimately killed the service members.”

“They also said that the warning siren had worked all week prior to the strike on the tactical operations center, but in prior incidents, some of the drones were already inside the base before the siren would sound.”

Requests were made for more protection to defeat incoming drones but were not provided.

“We basically had no drone defeat capability,” one source said.

Intelligence and foreign policy analyst Malcolm Nance blasted Secretary Hegseth over the lost lives.

“This is criminal incompetence,” Nance wrote. “This is on Hegseth and far worse than Benghazi. Far. Worse.”

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Just one day after signaling it would stand down in its fight with law firms that refuse to yield to President Donald Trump, the administration abruptly reversed course and moved to renew its defense of the president’s executive orders.

“The administration told a court on Monday that it was abandoning its defense of executive orders targeting the firms,” The New York Times reports. “But on Tuesday, the Justice Department appeared to abruptly change its position.”

According to the Times, the situation is currently “fluid,” as the administration has not indicated what legal strategy it will now utilize, nor has the court ruled that it would allow the Department of Justice to reverse course.

The administration on Monday had asked an appeals court if it could drop its appeal after law firms had won their case in court, an apparent signal that it did not believe the executive orders could withstand scrutiny.

“But on Tuesday morning, the Justice Department appeared to have abruptly changed its position, according to the people, the Times noted. “In an email to the four firms contesting the orders, a department official apologized for the short notice and said it would file a motion to withdraw its voluntary dismissal.”

On Monday, before the administration’s reversal, the Times reported that the administration had “abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House.”

Calling it “the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court,” the Times reported that the “move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind.”

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein commented on the latest development: “A reversal on the reversal as the attacks on Big Law are now back on, apparently.”

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