Report reveals reasons for Pentagon's delay in announcing US troops killed and wounded

A report prepared by CNN revealed that the US Department of War (Pentagon) is delaying the announcement of the casualties and deaths of its troops during the ongoing war with Iran, justifying this by maintaining the safety of military personnel deployed in the Middle East, after  US media reports accused the Pentagon of hiding Washington's losses in the war on Iran.

A review of U.S. military data and statements by Pentagon officials confirmed a noticeable delay in including the numbers of dead and wounded in official records, with documents showing that it would take several days and sometimes weeks for the attacks to update the data.

In recent months, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) has stopped issuing regular updates on attacks that do not result in fatalities, limiting itself to updating the Defense Casualty Analysis System database in non-continuous batches.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the delay in announcing casualties was intended to protect the more than 50,000 U.S. troops deployed in the region, stressing that providing the media with real-time information provides adversaries with data that could put additional troops at risk.

Sea and Air Losses and Records Updates

Data released by the military tracking system until mid-July  revealed  the registration of a new death of a helicopter pilot in the navy, named Gabriel Edwards, following a maritime accident that occurred last May in the Arabian Sea.

Official updates to the military website confirmed the addition of 14 new injuries among soldiers in an update dated late June, to which one member of the air force was injured and 10 soldiers and three sailors were injured in subsequent batches.

An additional update was reportedly published that recorded four new deaths among soldiers and 20 additional injuries, following the publication of the media report documenting the official procedures.

Military sources said that the procedures for evaluation and careful medical review cause the registration of injuries and deaths to take several days before they are officially listed.

Decisive attacks and funeral ceremonies

Military reports confirmed the death of two US soldiers and the loss of a third soldier following a missile strike on the Muwaffaq al-Salti air base in Jordan, in addition to the death of another soldier in northern Iraq as a result of the explosion of a drone.

The Central Command explained that 4 soldiers underwent treatment in Jordan and left hospitals, while others returned to duty after medical examinations for minor injuries, in conjunction with the injury of a soldier in the Iraq incident.

A U.S. administration official revealed a report that the bodies of four dead soldiers were transferred to Dover Air Force Base in a solemn ceremony to be held this week.

White House spokeswoman Carolyn Levitt said funeral arrangements and official transportation had been postponed to complete protocol arrangements in the presence of the political leadership.

The New York Times: The Pentagon is hiding war losses

  The New York Times recently  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.