The “Casualty Cover-Up” Amid Trump’s Wars in the Middle East

Almost 750 US troops have been wounded or killed in the Middle East since October 2023, an evaluation by The Intercept has discovered. But the Pentagon will not acknowledge it.

US Central Command, or CENTCOM, which oversees navy operations in the Middle East, seems to be engaged in what a protection official known as a “casualty cover-up,” providing The Intercept low-ball and outdated figures and failing to offer clarifications on navy deaths and accidents.

At least 15 US troops have been wounded Friday in an Iranian assault on a Saudi air base that hosts American troops, based on two authorities officers who spoke with The Intercept. Hundreds of US personnel have been killed or injured in the area since the US launched a battle on Iran simply over a month in the past.

President Donald Trump — who wore a blue go well with, purple tie, and a ball cap to the dignified switch of the first Americans killed in the battle — stated casualties have been inevitable. “When you have conflicts like this, you always have death,” he stated afterwards. “I met the parents and they were unbelievable people. They were unbelievable people, but they all had one thing in common. They said to me, one thing, every single one: Finish the job, sir. Please finish the job.”

On Tuesday, Trump teased that he would wind down the battle with Iran in as little as two weeks regardless of not reaching lots of his acknowledged objectives, similar to “freedom for the people” of Iran, “tak[ing] the oil in Iran“,” and forcing Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” At one level, the president even declared that the war would final “as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

CENTCOM has despatched outdated statements on casualty numbers, in the meantime, ensuing in undercounts, together with an announcement despatched Monday from spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins noting that “Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 303 US service members have been wounded.” The remark was three days outdated and excluded at least 15 wounded in the Friday assault on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The command didn’t reply to repeated requests for up to date figures.

CENTCOM would additionally not present an account of troops who’ve died in the area since the begin of the battle. An Intercept evaluation places the quantity at at least 15.

“This is, quite obviously, a subject that [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth and the White House want to keep under major wraps,” stated the protection official who spoke on the situation of anonymity in order to talk frankly.

In 2024, throughout the Biden administration, the Pentagon supplied The Intercept with detailed chronologies of assaults on US bases in the Middle East that listed the particular outpost that was attacked, the sort of strike, and whether or not — or what number of — casualties resulted, together with an mixture rely of assaults by nation.

The Trump administration’s numbers, by comparability, lack element and readability. The present CENTCOM casualty figures don’t seem to incorporate greater than 200 sailors handled for smoke inhalation or in any other case injured as a consequence of a hearth that raged aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford earlier than it was cleaned off to Souda Bay, Greece, for repairs. CENTCOM didn’t reply to shut to a dozen requests for clarification on the casualty rely and associated info despatched this week.

“CENTCOM and the White House should be providing accurate and timely information on the costs and casualties involved in this war. After all, it is American taxpayers who are funding it and US economic prosperity and economic well-being that is being undermined by it,” Jennifer Kavanagh, the director of navy evaluation at Defense Priorities, a assume tank that advocates for measured US international coverage, advised The Intercept.

As the US has relentlessly bombed Iran, that nation has responded with attacks on US bases throughout the Middle East utilizing ballistic missiles and drones. CENTCOM refuses to even supply a easy rely of US bases which have been attacked throughout the battle. “We have nothing for you,” a spokesperson advised The Intercept. An evaluation by The Intercept, nevertheless, finds that bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates have been focused.

On Tuesday, Hegseth stated that Iran retained the potential to retaliate for US strikes however that their assaults could be ineffective. “Yes, they will still shoot some missiles,” he stated, “but we will shoot them down.” On Wednesday morning, officers in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar all reported missile or drone assaults from Iran.

Iranian strikes have pressured US troops to withdraw from their bases to accommodations and workplace buildings throughout the area, based on the two authorities officers. The protection official was furious about the Pentagon’s failure to adequately harden the bases and ridiculed Hegseth’s Tuesday prayer at a Pentagon press convention. “May God watch over all of them, each day and each night. May his almighty and eternal arms of providence stretch over them and protect them,” stated Hegseth.

“Why didn’t Hegseth protect them?” the protection official requested. “Anyone with a brain knew these attacks were coming.”

Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.

Retired Gen. Joseph Votel, a former head of Central Command, recalled that US troops in the area have confronted drone assaults for at the least a decade. “At that time we identified a need to protect against this threat, and it has taken far too long for the DoD to respond and provide adequate protection for our deployed troops,” he advised The Intercept, referencing drone assaults throughout the marketing campaign in opposition to ISIS in the spring of 2016. “It was a known expectation that, if attacked, Iran would retaliate against our bases, installations, and forces, and I agree that we should have anticipated and been prepared for this inevitability.”

Kavanagh, who beforehand called attention to the vulnerability of US outposts in the Middle East, echoed Votel. “It has been clear for years that the rapid proliferation of drones and cheap missiles would put US bases and US early detection radars in the region at risk, yet the Pentagon did little to protect them,” she stated. “The failure to invest in hardened infrastructure was a choice. Congress should see this failure as evidence that simply giving the Pentagon more money is not a path to national security.”

“We would be better off if bases across the region were closed for good,” she added.

In public statements, Iran’s international minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi known as out the US for utilizing civilians in close by Arab monarchies of the Gulf Cooperative Council states as human shields. “US soldiers fled military bases in GCC to hide in hotels and offices,” he wrote on X final week. “Hotels in US deny bookings to officers who may endanger customers. GCC hotels should do the same.”

Votel additionally expressed concern about troops utilizing accommodations and places of work, noting it “could turn normal civilian infrastructure into military targets for the regime.”

Last month, an Iranian drone struck on a resort in Bahrain wounded two War Department staff, based on a State Department cable reviewed by the Washington Post. CENTCOM didn’t reply to a request to substantiate to The Intercept that these accidents stem from a March 2 assault on the Crowne Plaza resort, a luxurious property in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, however one official indicated this was doubtless.

Votel stated {that a} failure to offer troops with satisfactory safety might handcuff US operations. “I think this really complicates command and control and could affect unit cohesion and effectiveness,” he advised The Intercept, referring to the switch of troops to accommodations and workplace buildings. “That said, we may not have many options if we cannot protect the military bases where they would normally be bedded down.”

At least 15 US troops in the Middle East have died since the starting of the Iranian War, together with six personnel who have been killed in a drone strike on Port Shuaiba, Kuwaitand a soldier who died as a consequence of an “enemy attack on March 1, 2026, at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia.” More than 520 US personnel have additionally been injured, together with those that suffered smoke inhalation on the Ford.

Prior to the present battle with Iran, US bases in the Middle East have been more and more focused by a mixture of one-way assault drones, rockets, mortars, and close-range ballistic missiles after Israel’s battle in Gaza started in October 2023, most of the assaults occurring in the yr following the consequence of the battle. At least 175 troops have been killed or wounded in these assaults, together with three service members who died in a January 2024 strike on Tower 22a facility in Jordan. Other assaults focused al-Asad Air Base, the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, Camp Victory, Union III, Erbil Air Base, and Bashur Air Base in Iraq and Al-Tanf garrison, Deir ez-Zor Air Base, Mission Support Site Euphrates, Mission Support Site Green Village, Patrol Base Shaddadi, Rumalyn Landing Zone, Tell Baydar, and Tal Tamir in Syria.

The casualty statistics don’t embrace contractorsmost of them foreigners who suffered non-combat accidents. Official US statistics present that there have been virtually 12,900 instances of accidents to contractors in the CENTCOM space of ​​operations throughout 2024 alone. More than 3,700 have been the most severe non-fatal accidents, together with traumatic mind accidents, requiring greater than seven days away from work. Eighteen contractors have been additionally killed, all of them in Iraq. The numbers are doubtless vital undercounts, but when even the fractional variety of recognized contractor accidents is added to the tally, the casualty rely for Americans and people on US bases might high 13,600.