US drops Iran war death toll from 18 to 14 after Pentagon changes how it reports casualties | Today’s news
The US Pentagon has revised the death toll for Operation Epic Fury, reducing the number of soldiers killed from 18 to 14 and removing dozens of wounded service members, after abruptly updating its public casualty database last week.
In its Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), the Defense Department appears to be tracking casualties under a new category called “Overseas Operations” rather than “Operation Epic Fury,” the name previously used for the military campaign in Iran, effectively resetting its tally of dead and wounded, ABC News reported Monday.
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Pentagon Cuts Iran War Casualties, Deaths: What We Know
While the public casualty database has previously reported fluctuating death tolls since the war began in February, discrepancies peaked on July 23, when the reported death toll dropped to 14, removing four US service members killed recently in Jordan and Iraq.
Additionally, the number of wounded soldiers also dropped from 482 on 22 July to 420 on 23 July. The redacted numbers appear to contradict the Pentagon’s own statement released last week, in which spokesman Sean Parnell noted that roughly 100 additional troops had been wounded since the two sides resumed hostilities on July 7.
The changes are reflected in the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), the Pentagon’s primary public database for tracking the nation’s military casualties. DCAS is maintained using data provided by the military services and serves as the federal government’s official public record of war casualties.
However, it remains unclear how the Department of Defense and its officials define “overseas operations” and whether it counts exclusively the casualties and casualties of the Iran war.
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The department’s decision to separate phases of the war from the broader campaign is unprecedented and could make it difficult to determine the total number of US military casualties, the report added. The new Overseas Operations category also includes 207 wounded soldiers since July 7, bringing at least 624 service members wounded since the U.S.-Israeli war began.
The revised accounting may be related to US President Donald Trump’s administration’s view that Operation Epic Fury ended in May, with renewed fighting reinstating a 60-day limit on military action without congressional approval.
Lawmakers are criticizing the Trump administration for reducing the death toll
The database, which still understates the conflict’s casualties, with Defense Department officials attributing discrepancies to a technical problem, has faced massive backlash, further raising questions about the department’s basic casualty tracking system.
The revised casualty reports have drawn criticism from lawmakers who say the administration is making the death toll of the Iran war less transparent while trying to circumvent the 60-day limit on military action without congressional approval by treating the conflict as a new operation.
Last week, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to clarify the Pentagon’s casualty reporting and called for a “full and accurate accounting” of all service members killed or wounded since the start of the Iran war.
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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was “outraged” to see the name of Sgt. Angel Rampersad, one of four soldiers recently killed in the war and a native of New York, has been removed from the database. Hochul said, “The Trump administration cannot revise the human cost of this war because it has become politically inconvenient,” adding, “Sgt. Rampersad gave her life in service to this country. Changing the site will not overwrite the truth of her sacrifice.”
The House passed a resolution on Iran’s war powers
The controversy has spilled over into Congress. In a rare rebuke to Trump, the House of Representatives last week passed a war powers resolution on Iran, with several Republicans including Thomas Massie, Warren Davidson, Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Barrett extending their support.
In a statement last week, Massie said, “Let me explain this absurd ruse: The Pentagon is pretending that there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief ceasefire,” adding that Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, is breaking the law and “must be held accountable” for waging war without Capitol Hill’s approval.
The revised number came after Trump downplayed the human cost of the Iran conflict last week. In a social media post, he compared American casualties in Iran to those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea and Vietnam, wars that have lasted years and claimed thousands of American lives.
