Pentagon ‘covers up’ US casualties of war against Iran: Report

The Pentagon has been manipulating the human toll of its war against Iran in a calculated move, a US government official described as a “casualty cover-up,” according to a report.

American news outlet The Intercept said in a report on Wednesday that the Pentagon has unexpectedly subtracted 15 wounded-in-action troops from its official tally during the two-week ceasefire that was agreed between Iran and the US on April 8.

According to the report, on the day the ceasefire took effect, the tally of US dead and wounded personnel was 385.

Despite a pause in hostilities, the number had slowly risen to 428, according to Pentagon statistics. Yet a few days later, the number of wounded-in-action troops declined by 15 troops without public comment from the War Department, dropping the total to 413.

The count held steady toward the end of the week, except for one public War Department tally that put the “grand total” of wounded and dead at 411.

Citing two Pentagon spokespersons, the report described the undercount as a “casualty cover-up.”

It said that the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), which tracks “deceased, wounded, ill or injured” service members for Congress and the president, is missing hundreds of known casualties.

“These numbers, it is obvious, are important. That they don’t want the public to have them says something,” one official said. “That’s the definition of a cover-up.”

The Pentagon’s casualty undercount came as President Donald Trump unilaterally extended the ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday, just hours before it was set to expire.

Setting aside the question of the disappearance of the wounded, the report said that the Pentagon’s official casualty statistics offer a distorted image of the war against Iran.

While DCAS provides a running tally of “non-hostile” deaths — meaning those who died from accidents or by illness — it doesn’t include “non-hostile” injuries.

The Pentagon has reportedly failed to clarify why DCAS provides counts of war zone deaths but not non-hostile injuries or illnesses.

During a Tuesday interview, Trump repeatedly claimed that 13 male soldiers had died during the US war against Iran. According to DCAS, three of the dead are actually women.

This is not the first time the Trump administration has played a numbers game with American casualty statistics. During his first term in office, his administration began taking steps to undermine transparency surrounding US military casualties.

Not long after he took office in his first term in 2017, the Pentagon stopped releasing immediate information about American combat deaths in Afghanistan.

The war has left at least 3,300 martyrs in Iran and more than 2,300 in Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands, and drawn in Hezbollah as well as Yemen’s Ansarullah movement.

A two‑week ceasefire was brokered by Pakistan on April 8, but indirect talks in Islamabad failed to produce an agreement.

The US has signaled it is ready for another round of talks, but Iran has yet to make a final decision, with officials saying Tehran will not negotiate under threats.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir