A change in the count of those killed as a result of the war in Iran has some veterans, military families and lawmakers expressing outrage and calling for more transparency from the Pentagon.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon had reported on its website that 18 service members had been killed, but that number was later lowered to 14.
The change was made because the four service members killed recently in Jordan and Iraq had died after a cease-fire had been declared by President Trump in April, military officials told The New York Times on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal discussions.
President Trump on Wednesday witnessed the return of four young Army soldiers recently killed overseas whose deaths brought the total number of American service members who have died in the war to at least 18.
In comments on Thursday, Mr. Trump compared the toll from other American wars with the war against Iran, saying that even one death “is too many, but it’s 18.”
The acting press secretary for the Pentagon, Joel Valdez, on Thursday attributed the change to “temporary data disruptions” on the website that he suggested would be quickly fixed.
As of Saturday morning, the Pentagon’s website was still listing 14 service members killed.
“It is truly disgusting and disheartening to lower the count of our service members who gave their life for this country,” said Tanya Stamos, a Navy veteran and the founder of Operation R.J.S., a nonprofit in honor of her father, Richard James Stamos, also a veteran, that provides free telehealth counseling and support.
She continued: “As a Navy combat veteran myself, I find it a slap in the face that it is so easy to disregard my brothers and sisters in arms who raised their hand and gave an oath to protect and serve foreign and domestic, all for the government who is choosing to wipe their names from history.”
The brother of Dominic Ascioti, 36, is in the military and has been deployed to the Middle East during the war.
Mr. Ascioti said the change in the count by the Pentagon was either “gross incompetence” or “a deliberate attempt to mislead or mischaracterize reality.”
He said it reminded him of how Russia hides the number of its dead from its war on Ukraine.
“As families we need, to the best of the government’s ability, some transparency,” said Mr. Ascioti, who added that he opposed the war. “We want to know what’s happening with our family, and we want to know what happened to our family if something happened.”
The criticism of the Pentagon over its accounting of American casualties in the war has extended to the halls of Congress. On Thursday, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting a “comprehensive accounting” of the number of service members killed or wounded.
In the week before the recent attacks that killed three soldiers in Jordan, there were three other strikes by Iran that left dozens injured. These casualties were not immediately disclosed by the Pentagon, raising questions about whether the government was meeting its obligation to inform the country about the number of service members who had been either wounded or killed.
The senators wrote: “The American people, Congress, service members, and their families are entitled to a full and accurate accounting of the human costs of war. The information currently available to the public suggests that the Department has not consistently provided timely and comprehensive public casualty reporting throughout the conflict.”
Robyn Wheatley said her son Kyle, 20, joined the Air Force after he graduated from high school and had been deployed in the Middle East since March.
“If he was killed in action while serving in a war zone and his death was covered up, I would be furious, I would be upset,” said Ms. Wheatley, a city councilwoman in Newberg, Ore. “All the servicemen and women need to be honored.”
The criticism of how the Pentagon accounts for the war’s toll and informs the public comes amid renewed fighting after the collapse of the cease-fire.
Jeff Merrick, a retired Air Force master sergeant and a board member of Military Families Speak Out, a group formed in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the Pentagon’s accounting of the war dead was emblematic of a larger pattern of obfuscation.
“I don’t know what it shows other than a total disregard for our military and family members,” he said.
Helene Cooper, Lara Jakes and John Ismay contributed reporting.
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