The Pentagon is
using a new method of tallying the number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in the Iran war that a U.S. government official said was “designed to obscure the count.”
Since the start of the conflict, the Department of War has posted the official count of casualties on the website of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which
tracks
“deceased, wounded, ill or injured” service members for Congress and the president. This official
total
of dead and wounded personnel, as
documented
over
months
of reporting by The Intercept, has been a gross undercount, stemming from what that same official previously called a “
casualty cover-up
.”
But after a series of Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in the Middle East in July, the Pentagon last week rolled out a new approach. Casualties since July 7 are now counted separately on a new webpage with a generic designation: “Overseas Operations.”
Two hundred and seventy-three U.S. troops were killed or wounded since July 7, according to the Monday total on the new
Overseas Operations page
.
When combined with the existing DCAS page for the Iran war, the official count stands at 704, an 83 percent increase in casualties since April 8, the day the
first ceasefire deal
was struck between the Trump administration
and Iran
. When counting known casualties overlooked by the DCAS page, the total exceeds 900 personnel.
For months, the Pentagon has failed to comment on DCAS anomalies reported by The Intercept nor the reason for the change in the way it now counts casualties, which was first reported by the
New York Times
. Last week, the Pentagon told the newspaper that “since Operation Epic Fury has concluded, the department classifies casualties as overseas operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.” Central Command oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
“This is certainly designed to conceal the count of the wounded,” the official said, while noting that “incompetence
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