Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon has quietly walked back its own numbers weeks after he publicly dismissed reporting that challenged them.
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The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Defense Department late Friday raised the official count of troops who have died during U.S. operations against Iran to 21, adding two deaths not caused by combat.
Last month, the Post reported that six U.S. officials said the true number of service members lost was higher than what the Pentagon’s public casualty database showed. Hegseth responded at the time by calling the report “a complete lie” in a post on social media.
The newly added deaths include Army National Guard Maj. Sorffly Davius, who died in Kuwait on March 6, as well as a Navy sailor who died by suicide in September and has not been identified, according to a U.S. official who spoke to the Post anonymously. The updated data in the Defense Casualty Analysis System, known as DCAS, also lists 865 service members as wounded.
The military separately logged the May death of Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, who was killed in a training accident in Iraq. The Pentagon filed his death under Operation Inherent Resolve, its long-running campaign against the Islamic State, rather than the Iran conflict. Counting Seibel, 22 troops have died in the Middle East since operations against Iran began on Feb. 28, per the Post.
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Two senior Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee welcomed what they described as a “public correction” but did not let the Pentagon off the hook.
“There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the committee’s ranking Democrat, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) said in a joint statement. The pair called it “an embarrassment” for the military that lawmakers had to step in before the numbers were fixed.
In its own statement to the Post, the Pentagon did not address the revised figures. Instead, it said it was adding a “pending adjudication” category to DCAS as it continues to review casualty reports, a change first reported by DefenseScoop. The department insisted it “continues to maintain a steadfast commitment to the transparent, accurate accounting of all Service member casualties.”
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