The Pentagon belatedly
admitted that almost 100 U.S. troops have been injured in the last two weeks as Iran has hit U.S. targets across the Middle East, following months of reporting by The Intercept that found the Pentagon’s
official tally of dead and wounded personnel
is a gross
undercount
, which one U.S. government official previously called a “
casualty cover-up
.”
The disclosure came one day after a U.S. official
told
The Intercept that recent attacks by Iran had wounded “far more” personnel than the Pentagon had acknowledged, with “dozens” receiving medical attention.
After ranting that reports of a Pentagon effort to withhold news of dozens of U.S. casualties were “
baseless and malicious
,” Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson,
admitted
on Monday that “nearly 100 service members were deemed to have some degree of injury since July 7.” But as of early Tuesday morning, the official Pentagon database tracking U.S. casualties continue to show no U.S. forces were wounded in action during July.
The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss American casualties, called this “official ineptitude” in the service of the Trump administration.
The disclosure comes after three Army soldiers were killed in ballistic missile attacks on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan over the weekend. Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, were killed in action. The third soldier is provisionally listed as missing, but the official said that “unidentified remains” found after the attack were “certainly” those of the missing soldier. A second official confirmed this assessment and said the soldier’s body was so badly disfigured that a “complete investigation” had to be conducted in order to confirm the identity.
In Iraq, Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was killed and another soldier was wounded over the weeken
… [more]
