Pentagon Again Increases Number of U.S. Casualties in Iran War

The Pentagon has again quietly raised the number of U.S. service members killed and wounded during operations related to the Iran war amid widening criticism over the lack of transparency about the conflict’s human and operational costs. The military now is reporting that 21 U.S. service members have been killed, up from 18, and 865 wounded, up by 98 since August. The changes were posted Friday evening to the Defense Casualty Analysis System website , which offers a detailed breakdown of casualties by branch of service, rank, race and ethnicity. The cause of the increased casualty numbers is not completely clear, since the hostilities between the United States and Iran have largely been in a lull for many weeks. “There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,” Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington, and Representative Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said in a joint statement on Friday. The two House members had demanded an explanation from the Pentagon after the House Armed Services Committee discovered “a discrepancy in the Pentagon’s reporting of casualty numbers” and brought it to the White House’s attention. “The failure of Secretary Hegseth to immediately take ownership of the problem also does a grave disservice to the men and women putting their lives on the line in service to our country,” they added. The Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has deliberately withheld casualty numbers from the public, while also attacking reporters for publishing information on them. In response to reporting by The Washington Post in September that more U.S. troops had died in support of the Iran war than the Pentagon had acknowledged, Mr. Hegseth took to social media to say , “This is DISGUSTING and FAKE. A complete LIE.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .