The first sign of trouble came in July. While there was seemingly no meaningful debate about how many U.S. troops had died as part of the war with Iran — 18 American service members had made the ultimate sacrifice — the Defense Department decided to change its official online tally on the number of fatalities.
The total of 18 was reduced to 14, reportedly because administration officials decided that the most recent deaths occurred after Donald Trump had declared a ceasefire, so they literally did not count.
Not surprisingly, veterans and the loved ones of the fallen soldiers were not pleased, though a Pentagon spokesperson argued that the change reflected “temporary data disruptions” and “site anomalies.”
A few days later, those “anomalies” were addressed, but not well: The Defense Department’s Defense Casualty Analysis System, which tracks war casualties, showed a total of 14 fatalities, despite having shown 18 fatalities less than a week earlier, though this dovetailed with a separate online page that listed “overseas operations casualties” and documented the other four service members who have died as part of the war with Iran.
To know how many American troops have died as part of the combat operations, people were apparently supposed to visit both online lists and then do the math.
Two months later, a related question has emerged: Is 18 even the correct total? The Washington Post reported:
More American service members have died in the Middle East during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the Defense Department’s internal casualty accounting data.
Five of the officials said there have been at least 22 military fatalities — four more than what appears in the Pentagon’s public database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS.
The Post’s report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, noted that the specific details surrounding the undisclosed deaths — including the service members’ identities, as well as when, how and where they died — remain unclear, adding, “Officials familiar with the higher casualty number expressed frustration that the additional loss of life is not reflected in the Pentagon’s public casualty portal.”
When the Post pressed the Pentagon on the burgeoning controversy, officials “declined to address questions about the accounting discrepancy.”
The allegations, however, did not go unnoticed on Capitol Hill. In fact, Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that he considers the latest reporting to be factual.
“Under Secretary Hegseth, the Department of Defense has obfuscated the numbers of wounded servicemembers in Iran and reclassified American deaths under a new operation name to avoid contradicting the president,” the senator said in a written statement issued Saturday, the day after the Post’s report was published. “That is profoundly disrespectful to our troops and their families.”
This comes a month after Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told MS NOW that she’s championing a proposal, the Honoring the Sacrifice of Troops in War Act, which would require the Trump administration to keep an accurate public tally of U.S. casualties in the conflict.
The bill quickly picked up 17 cosponsors, all of whom are Democrats, but it’s gone ignored by the Senate Republican majority. If the GOP loses its majority in November, and the war is still ongoing in the new year, it’s a safe bet a hypothetical Democratic majority would take legislation like this quite seriously.
This post updates ourrelated earlier coverage.
This article was originally published on ms.now
