The U.S. military
revealed that an additional 60 service members have been injured in the Iran war, lifting the official toll to 776 troops wounded or killed. Some 345 of these casualties have occurred since July 7, after a second ceasefire
imploded
. As the numbers of dead and wounded troops have recently mounted, the Pentagon has quietly been seeking casualty and mortuary services, according to government contracting documents analyzed by The Intercept.
The increase of 60 wounded last week was called “an accounting trick,” by one U.S. government official who accused the Pentagon of “slow-walking” the total for weeks. “They wanted the heat on them to slow down after the really devastating attacks,” that source told The Intercept, referencing airstrikes on U.S. bases last month that exposed the vulnerability of U.S. troops to Iranian attacks.
The office of self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including when and where the injuries occurred.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration’s war with Iran, Hegseth’s department 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 White House. Casualties since July 7 are now
counted separately
on a webpage with a generic title: “Overseas Operations.” Combined with totals for
Operation Epic Fury
— the military’s official designation for the initial months of the Iran war — 18 service members have died and 758 have been wounded since the U.S. launched the war against Iran on February 28, according to DCAS. 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
.”
In the face of the increasing number of dead and wounded troops, the military has been see
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