CBS Obtains Video of Iranian Strikes on Camp Buehring in Kuwait, Reports Troops Ran Low on .50-Cal Ammo

Seven months into the war with Iran, new video shows what the opening days looked like on the ground at one of the biggest U.S. staging bases in the Middle East.

CBS News obtained the footage exclusively. It was recorded by a person stationed at Camp Buehring in Kuwait and shows impacts and the aftermath, including damaged buildings and military equipment. CBS said it authenticated the files through embedded metadata and by comparing them with photographs of the damage.

What the troops who stayed describe

Camp Buehring sits about 25 miles from the Iraqi border and has served as a staging ground for U.S. forces deploying across the region for more than two decades. Before the shooting started, most of the roughly 7,000 troops there were moved out as part of the Pentagon's "get off the X" plan, shorthand for leaving a position vulnerable to attack.

More than 100 soldiers stayed. According to CBS, Iranian attacks, some launched from Iraq, repeatedly forced them into bunkers. Ballistic missiles and drones came in.

Three service members told CBS that Iranian F-5 fighter jets also struck the base. NBC News first reported that detail in April. "They ran so close to us I could see their helmets," one eyewitness told CBS. "They came in, they hit us, and then took off."

The source, who spoke anonymously because of military media restrictions, put it more bluntly: "They hit us bad." Those left behind feared the isolated base could not handle a mass-casualty event if the attacks continued.

Ammunition and the move into the desert

CBS reports that soldiers defending the base ran critically low on .50-caliber ammunition. An Army logistics official working elsewhere in Kuwait corroborated concerns about ammunition and other defensive resources, according to CBS.

The troops eventually left. According to CBS, they loaded equipment into vehicles and drove into the Kuwaiti desert at night, where they set up forward operating bases in the Udari Desert. "We had to abandon the base," one source told CBS.

The desert was not safe either. Two soldiers were injured by lightning in late April during sandstorms, one with burns and one with a ruptured eardrum, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. Commanders had tried to relocate the troops before then but did not finish in time, CBS reported.

The soldiers moved to Camp Arifjan in May and then received new assignments inside and outside the Middle East.

No soldiers were killed by enemy fire at Camp Buehring or the desert positions, according to CBS. Several were injured.

The Pentagon's position

CENTCOM declined to comment to CBS. The Pentagon did not comment directly and pointed the network to remarks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made on March 4.

"As we built up offensive combat power, we moved the vast majority of American troops, over 90% of Americans that were on our bases, what we say off the X, out of the range of Iranian fire," Hegseth told reporters.

That is the department's argument in full. Pull most people out of reach, and the strikes land on buildings and equipment instead of on troops. The reported outcome fits that claim in one respect: no one at Buehring or the desert sites died from enemy fire, per CBS, and the footage shows damage to property.

The account from the soldiers who stayed is a different kind of evidence. They describe being hit by missiles, drones and jets while short of .50-cal rounds, with no good plan for mass casualties. The Pentagon has not addressed those specifics.

Part of a larger damage picture

The Buehring footage is not the first sign that U.S. bases took a beating. The Jerusalem Post reported in September that a Pentagon inspector general assessment documented damage to hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases across the region.

Rifle-caliber and heavy machine gun rounds are cheap and basic. A shortage of them at a major installation, if accurate, points to a logistics failure rather than a technology gap. That is a fair question for a department that has asked Congress for enormous sums.

The account also leans heavily on anonymous service members, who spoke under military media restrictions. Only the logistics official's corroboration and the authenticated video back them up. No named officer or official has confirmed the ammunition shortage or the circumstances of the night departure.

CENTCOM and the Pentagon have not said how much .50-caliber ammunition was on hand at Camp Buehring when the attacks began, whether the shortage was reported up the chain, or why the move out of the base was not completed before the April lightning injuries. Those are the answers that would show whether this was a one-base problem or a systemic one.