US finds a new way to ‘undercount’ casualties from Iranian retaliation: Report

The US Department of War has introduced a new system for “counting” American military casualties from Iran’s retaliation, separating the troops killed or wounded since July 7 from those recorded during the earlier months, a report shows.

Casualties incurred since July 7 are now listed on a separate Department of War webpage under the generic designation “Overseas Operations,” rather than being included directly in the existing Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) tally for the unprovoked American-Israeli aggression that targeted the Islamic Republic from February 27 until April 7, investigative American outlet the Intercept reported on Tuesday.

According to the Monday total on the new page, 273 US troops have been killed or wounded since July 7.

Combined with the casualties caused from Iranian retaliation to the 40-day aggression, the official casualty count currently stands at 704.

The Intercept noted, however, that previous reporting by the outlet has identified known casualties missing from the Department of War's official figures, putting the total at more than 900 personnel when those cases are included.

Even by the department’s own account, the casualties caused since July 7 represents an 83-percent increase from those incurred previously, it also reported.

The report followed one by the outlet late last month, in which it cited a US official as saying that Iran had demonstrated an increasing ability to strike US military facilities across West Asia by combining attack drones with advanced ballistic missiles. It noted at the time that the Islamic Republic has carried out retaliatory strikes against at least nine US military outposts across the region since July 9. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several of the facilities had sustained “significant damage.”

Department of War ‘explains’ new accounting method

The department told The New York Times that since the 40-day aggression has concluded, it classifies casualties as “Overseas Operations” in the area of responsibility assigned to CENTCOM, which overseas the American troops deployed to West Asia.

A US government official told the Intercept that the new system was “designed to obscure the count.”

“This is certainly designed to conceal the count of the wounded,” the official said.

Department of War spokesperson Sean Parnell has, however, described reports of an effort to withhold information about US casualties as “baseless and malicious.”

The DCAS figures have also changed repeatedly. On July 21, the system listed 500 casualties from the Iranian response to the 40-day aggression. That figure has since fallen to 431.

Earlier, on April 21, the number of wounded-in-action personnel was slashed by 15 too without a public explanation.

Department of War records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and examined by the War Horse, which reports on US military and veterans issues, also recorded more than 400 casualties between February 28 and April 8, including 70 on March 18 alone.

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