Iran War: US casualty figures postponed by Defense Ministry

New numbers, new criticism

Pentagon causes confusion with casualty figures

The Pentagon has reorganized the portrayal of US victims in the Iran war. The division into two categories is now attracting criticism from Republican and Democratic sides.

The Pentagon’s approach to publishing the US casualty figures in the Iran War is causing strong criticism. The Ministry of Defense under Pete Hegseth had partially rearranged and shifted the numbers, which resulted in inconsistencies in the number of injuries and fatalities.

In the publication, the Defense Department lists the number of US soldiers killed or wounded and indicates which branch of the military the victims belonged to. But the counting method unexpectedly changed during July. The tendency seemed to be to correct the number of dead downwards and the number of wounded upwards. The death toll suddenly fell from 18 to 14, and a few days later the number of injured rose by 204 people. However, this only happened because a second report appeared at the same time in which the four fatalities were postponed.

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In fact, the number of victims appears lower in the publication than in reality, as the list is now divided into two categories. According to the military portal “Task and Purpose”, part of the fatalities were moved from the military operation report “Operation Epic Fury” to a report called “Overseas Operations”.

The Pentagon is separating the Iran war into two different operations, even though it is an ongoing war. There was a ceasefire between the two military operations USA and that Iran. This is how the Pentagon justifies its decision to start the new count on July 7th, the day the ceasefire was announced.

The victims of “Operation Epic Fury”, which was launched by the US on February 28th, currently number 14 dead and 412 injured. The later “Overseas Operations” now also count the four US soldiers killed in the Iranian attack on a US base in July as well as 207 injured.

Criticism of this approach comes from both Republican and Democratic sides. Republican Thomas Massie criticized the new counting method on Platform X as an “absurd trick.” The Pentagon is acting “as if there had been two Iran wars, separated by a brief ceasefire.”

The Democratic Senator from Nevada, Jacky Rosen, joined other senators in calling for a complete and accurate representation of the number of victims. Their statement said: “The American people, Congress, service members and their families are entitled to a full and accurate accounting of the human cost of war.”