Pentagon quietly The U.S. Department of Defense acknowledged on Friday night that the war in Iran has caused more deaths, after The Intercept repeatedly asked the U.S. Army Department website for inaccurate statistics tracking U.S. casualties in the conflict.
Nearly 900 U.S. troops have been injured or killed in the war with Iran, according to an official Pentagon count, including two more on Friday. This brings the Pentagon death toll to 21.
Other fatalities include Maj. Sofli Davidus, a New York Army National Guard signals and communications officer assigned to 42nd Infantry Division Headquarters, who died in the line of duty on March 6 at Camp Billin, Kuwait. For more than six months, The Intercept publicly mentioned Davidius’ case in dozens of emails and phone conversations with Pentagon officials and in 10 public articles.
The Pentagon recently modified the website of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), which provides official casualty counts to Congress and the White House, to include a more detailed table of casualty categories. But it initially did not list deaths from “non-hostile” illnesses or injuries, although the Pentagon announced in March that Davidius “died from a non-combat-related incident.”
Initially, the military claimed that Davies was involved in another operation other than “Epic Fury” – the original name for the war in Iran. However, two weeks ago, The Intercept revealed that a recent press release from the National Guard acknowledged that when “President Donald Trump decided to attack Iran and launch an epic fury on February 28, [42nd Infantry] The division headquarters began combat operations. “Major General Jack James, commander of the 42nd Division, said that the 42nd Division is the main command leading this “largest and first long-range precision fire battle in the history of the U.S. Army.” James paid special tribute to Davidus, who the Guard admitted was “in the line of duty” at the time of his death.
Last week, The Intercept pointed out Epic Fury’s non-hostile disease or injury casualty count to the Pentagon on its website, emphasizing that its statistics show zero deaths is impossible.
“I will conduct an internal review,” Pentagon spokesperson Patricia Kreuzberg said Tuesday. “Let me reach out to leadership.”
Three days later, and after multiple follow-up messages on Friday, the count was updated to 1.
In addition to Davidus, the DCAS death toll now includes an unidentified Navy suicide last month, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. DCAS currently lists the death as “pending” despite the recent addition of a “self-harm” category to the website.
On Sunday, a “Department of the Army official” told The Intercept via email that “DoD is introducing the ‘Pending Adjudication’ category to track the status of active-duty casualties pending final classification and reporting in DCAS.” She added: “This new category will allow DoD to minimize reporting delays while ensuring data consistency between DoD and the Joint Staff.”
However, the name “pending” is not new. The Pentagon reintroduced it to DCAS in mid-July, and there have been significant discrepancies in the statistical results ever since.
Many casualties in DCAS remain uncounted, including a non-combat-related injury suffered by a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on March 25 while participating in a “strike mission in support of Operation Epic Fury.”
Most of the official casualties in Iran’s war – 454 as of Friday – have occurred since July 7, when the Trump administration declared the conflict over. At that time, the Pentagon shifted from casualty statistics under “Epic Fury” to the innocuous name of “Operation Overseas.”
The latest casualties are three Army personnel wounded in action this month. The latest known death toll from the Iran war was Capt. Bianca Wilkerson, 37, of Norfolk, Virginia, who died of “coronary artery problems” on Sept. 18, according to her brother. He said she returned from Saudi Arabia on Sept. 10 but died on the return flight, The Virginian-Pilot reported. A U.S. official told The Intercept that Wilkerson “died from a non-combat-related incident,” but nearly a month later, DCAS still does not list a death from non-hostile illness or injury.
Reps. Chrissy Hoolahan, D-Pennsylvania, and Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a joint statement on Friday that “there is no excuse for this serious error” after the House Armed Services Committee found “discrepancies in casualty numbers reported by the Pentagon” and brought them to the “attention of the Trump administration.” They continued: “Secretary Heggs’ failure to immediately address this issue also does a serious disservice to the men and women who risk their lives serving our country.”
For six months, The Intercept has been reporting anomalies in official DCAS statistics. When the Trump administration and Iran reached the first ceasefire on April 7, U.S. casualties were 385. Despite the suspension of hostilities, the number slowly rose to 428, according to Pentagon statistics. But on April 21, without public acknowledgment by the War Department, the number of dead soldiers dropped by 15. The Pentagon has yet to provide an explanation for the change, despite repeated questioning for months.
For months, other differences made no sense. There was an Army death “due to illness/injury” around May 26th, but by June 1st it was gone. On July 20, the Pentagon revised DCAS several times, increasing the number of war casualties by 100 without any explanation; the total number of casualties counted by DCAS that day included 413, 427, and 447. Three days later, the Pentagon lowered Iran’s war death toll from 18 to 14. On July 22, DCAS added 10 recent casualties to the Epic Fury tally. By July 25, these injured persons had been removed from the statistics. They may have been counted as casualties from overseas operations, but the Pentagon has failed to provide any explanation.
Previous reporting by The Intercept also found that the Pentagon’s official tally of casualties was a significant undercount due to what a U.S. government official in April called a “cover-up of casualties.” When The Washington Post suggested last month that the Pentagon was hiding casualty figures, self-styled Army Secretary Pete Hegseth called the report “disgusting and false.”
When asked by The Intercept about the Pentagon’s continued peddling of false statistics, Kreuzberger had no explanation. An email from an unnamed “Department of the Army official” said: “We have nothing to offer other than the Defense Casualty Analysis System website.”