The New York Times: The Pentagon is hiding  the human and material losses of the war on Iran

The US newspaper "New York Times"  revealed that the US  Department of War (Pentagon) is  hiding information related to the injury of dozens of US military personnel and damage to military helicopters, as a result of Iranian attacks targeting US forces in the region, in the context of the US-Iran war.

A report by its military affairs correspondent Eric Schmidt on Monday (July 20) said that Iran carried out three attacks in the past week before Friday's attack, which killed at least three American soldiers.

U.S. officials told the newspaper that the attacks were not announced at the time, despite the injuries and material damage they caused, and  the newspaper said the anonymity reflects the tension between the War Department's operational security imperatives and the government's duty to inform the public.

It pointed out that the US Central Command (CENTCOM) data was confirming that the airstrikes were in response to the targeting of commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, without mentioning the attacks on military bases in the region.

Military justifications and a rise in the death toll

The newspaper quoted a US military official as saying that the Central Command is not obligated to announce the casualties of the soldiers, especially if they return to duty quickly.

Another official added that revealing those details could help Iran improve the accuracy of its ballistic missile and drone targeting.

The American newspaper reported that the Central Command also stopped announcing the daily number of targeted sites inside Iran for the same reasons.

The newspaper explained that the file of human casualties represents one of the most sensitive issues, pointing out that the number of American military personnel killed has risen to 17 since the start of the US-Israeli attacks on February 28, noting that the protocols oblige the names of the dead to be identified 24 hours after their families are notified, without publishing the names of the injured.

Declining transparency and limited strategic details

The New York Times confirmed that more than 400 U.S. service members have  been confirmed to have been infected  since the war began, but the Pentagon is hiding these numbers and has stopped regularly updating the numbers of wounded and returning to service in recent weeks.

 The  Pentagon has provided limited information over the past few days on the military strategy after about five months of war, with the Pentagon's last extensive briefing dating back to early May.

The newspaper reported that President Donald Trump's administration did not disclose the extent of the depletion of US stockpiles of heavy weapons, nor did it explain how Iran would restore its missile capabilities.

The report compared the current method to previous administrations, noting that the War Department under former President Joe Biden regularly reported the number of casualties in attacks by Iran