\n<\/p>\n
The Pentagon continues<\/span> to peddle misleading U.S. casualty figures from the Iran war, even after The Intercept reported on what one defense official called a \u201ccasualty cover-up<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Pressed for a more accurate count of U.S. personnel killed or injured during Operation Epic Fury, the Office of the Secretary of War provided a new tally that still undercounts American dead or wounded. This comes after U.S. Central Command ghosted The Intercept after sending lowball and outdated figures last week.<\/p>\n The continued undercount comes amid a fragile ceasefire<\/a> between the U.S. and Iran in which both sides have claimed victory. Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine noted during a Wednesday press conference<\/a> that the halt in fighting was only \u201ca pause\u201d in the conflict, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said U.S. forces were \u201cprepared to restart at a moment\u2019s notice.\u201d<\/p>\n When questioned about stale numbers initially sent by CENTCOM, a Secretary of War spokesperson referred The Intercept to the new Operation Epic Fury webpage of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, which generates casualty counts for Congress and the president<\/a>.<\/p>\n DCAS counts 13 hostile and non-hostile U.S. deaths during the war, listing out their names.\u00a0Missing from the Pentagon tally is Maj. Sorffly Davius, a signals and communication officer with the New York Army National Guard who was assigned to the headquarters of the 42nd Infantry Division and reportedly died of sudden illness while on duty in Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on March 6, 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cHe passed away while deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Epic Fury,\u201d said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., during a memorial service<\/a> for Davius late last month. Caine<\/a> also recognized him while \u201chonoring our fallen\u201d from the war.<\/p>\n The Pentagon did not reply prior to publication to a request for comment on why Davius was missing from its casualty rolls.<\/p>\n The military\u2019s count of those injured and wounded is even more flawed. Last week, multiple military personnel were injured when a U.S. F-15 was shot down over Iran and an A-10 Warthog crashed near the Straight of Hormuz. One of the Air Force officers from the F-15 who was rescued by U.S. Special Operations<\/a> forces during a Saturday night mission, for example, was \u201cbleeding rather profusely<\/a>\u201d and \u201cinjured quite badly,\u201d according to President Donald Trump. But CENTCOM has failed to provide The Intercept with updated casualty figures reflecting these and other wounded personnel. (The Pentagon\u2019s DCAS may reflect these wounded, but it\u2019s impossible to know for certain due to the system\u2019s lack of detail.)<\/p>\n CENTCOM has not replied to more than a dozen requests for clarification\u00a0over the last week since claiming to The Intercept in a March 30 email that \u201csince the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 303 U.S. service members have been wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n On its website, the DCAS states that its goal \u201cis to provide as accurate reporting of military casualties as possible.\u201d Yet it posts conflicting counts of troops injured in Operation Epic Fury. On one page titled \u201cCasualty Summary by Casualty Category,\u201d DCAS lists 372 troops wounded in action \u2014 a count 23 percent higher than CENTCOM\u2019s claims to The Intercept. On another page titled \u201cCasualty Summary by Month and Service,\u201d DCAS lists an even lower \u201cgrand total\u201d of wounded in action: 357. Both counts were updated on April 8.<\/p>\n Putting aside its internal data discrepancies, the way the system defines casualties offers a skewed image of the conflict. Though the DCAS tracks \u201cnon-hostile\u201d deaths \u2014 meaning individuals killed in accidents or by illness \u2014 it doesn\u2019t include \u201cnon-hostile\u201d injuries. For example, the DCAS figures show that at least 63 Navy personnel have been wounded in action. What it doesn\u2019t show \u2014 and what the CENTCOM casualty figures also exclude \u2014 are more than 200 sailors<\/a> treated for smoke inhalation or lacerations due to a March 12 fire that raged aboard the USS\u00a0Gerald R. Ford<\/a> before it limped out of the war zone for repairs. The numbers also don\u2019t include a sailor who suffered a non-combat-related injury<\/a> aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as it was involved in \u201cstrike missions in support of Operation Epic Fury\u201d on March 25.<\/p>\n The Department of War did not reply to a request for comment on why DCAS tracks non-hostile war zone deaths but not non-hostile injuries or illnesses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible to know how many other casualties have been kept under wraps. After an\u00a0Iranian missile attack on Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8, 2020, during Trump\u2019s first term, the administration peddled a complete fiction to the public. \u201cNo Americans were harmed in last night\u2019s attack by the Iranian regime,\u201d Trump said<\/a> at the time. \u201cWe suffered no casualties.\u201d <\/p>\n Soon, the Pentagon would acknowledge there were, indeed, casualties and proceeded to adjust the figure upward at least five times, with CENTCOM ultimately admitting that 110 troops suffered traumatic brain injuries. An inspector general report<\/a> released in November 2021 indicated that the number of brain injuries may have been even higher, because \u201cDoD cannot determine whether all Service members are being properly diagnosed and treated for TBIs in deployed settings.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump claimed that \u201cnobody was even injured<\/a>\u201d in the Saturday rescue mission that involved hundreds of Special Operations troops and other military personnel. During a Wednesday press conference, Hegseth echoed this, claiming there were \u201czero American casualties.\u201d\u00a0But blast symptoms \u2014 like traumatic brain injuries \u2014 can take time to manifest, if the military even bothers<\/a> to assess them.<\/p>\n \u201cNot a single thing we\u2019ve done has put an American troop in more of a harm\u2019s way,\u201d Hegseth said on Wednesday<\/a>. But current and former Pentagon officials say the War Department failed to adequately protect U.S. personnel on bases across the Middle East, forcing troops to retreat to hotels and office buildings during Epic Fury.<\/p>\n U.S. bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates have also been targeted by Iranian drones and missiles. Retired Gen. Joseph Votel, a former head of Central Command, recalled that U.S. troops in the region have faced drone attacks for at least a decade. \u201cAt that time we identified a need to protect against this threat, and it has taken far too long for the DoD to respond and provide adequate protection for our deployed troops,\u201d he told The Intercept<\/a>, referencing drone attacks during the campaign against ISIS in the spring of 2016. \u201cIt was a known expectation that, if attacked, Iran would retaliate against our bases, installations, and forces, and I agree that we should have anticipated and been prepared for this inevitability.\u201d<\/p>\n While much of the focus on U.S. forces has centered on air and naval power, it is the Army \u2014 whose soldiers man the interceptor missile systems on those bases \u2014 that has suffered the most casualties: 251, according to DCAS statistics. The Army is only now seeking sensors designed to assess \u201cblast overpressure<\/a>,\u201d the sudden onset of a pressure wave from explosions from enemy munitions and the blasts from weapon systems employed by soldiers themselves. It can lead to cognitive impairment and adverse effects on brain health, including traumatic brain injuries. Trump<\/a>\u00a0has long dismissed<\/a> brain injuries as\u00a0\u201cheadaches\u201d and \u201cnot serious.\u201d\u00a0<\/a>CENTCOM claims that the \u201cvast majority\u201d of injuries of the current war have been \u201cminor.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 13 deaths counted in DCAS, six were killed in a drone strike on\u00a0Port Shuaiba, Kuwait<\/a>. A soldier also died due to an \u201cenemy attack on March 1, 2026, at\u00a0Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia<\/a>.\u201d If the USS Ford injuries were added to the Navy count, that service would take over the top spot with more than 264 wounded. DCAS also counts 39 Air Force personnel wounded in action and 19 Marines.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n