<\/p>\n
The Pentagon is<\/span> using a new method of tallying the number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in the Iran war that a U.S. government official said was \u201cdesigned to obscure the count.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the start of the conflict, the Department of War has posted the official count of casualties on the website of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which tracks<\/a> \u201cdeceased, wounded, ill or injured\u201d service members for\u00a0Congress and the president. This official total<\/a> of dead and wounded personnel, as documented<\/a> over months<\/a> of reporting by The Intercept,\u00a0has been a\u00a0gross\u00a0undercount, stemming from what that same official previously called a \u201ccasualty cover-up<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But after a series of Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in the Middle East in July, the Pentagon last week rolled out a new approach. Casualties since July 7 are now counted separately on a new webpage with a generic designation: \u201cOverseas Operations.\u201d<\/p>\n Two hundred and seventy-three U.S. troops were killed or wounded since July 7, according to the Monday total on the new Overseas Operations page<\/a>.<\/p>\n When combined with the existing DCAS page for the Iran war, the official count stands at 704, an 83 percent increase in casualties since April 8, the day the first ceasefire deal<\/a> was struck between the Trump administration and Iran<\/a>. When counting known casualties overlooked by the DCAS page, the total exceeds 900 personnel.<\/p>\n For months, the Pentagon has failed to comment on DCAS anomalies reported by The Intercept nor the reason for the change in the way it now counts casualties, which was first reported by the New York Times<\/a>. Last week, the Pentagon told the newspaper that \u201csince Operation Epic Fury has concluded, the department classifies casualties as overseas operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.\u201d Central Command oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is certainly designed to conceal the count of the wounded,\u201d the official said, while noting that \u201cincompetence\u201d has also caused confusion in the casualty count.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The change comes after a July 20 rant by Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell who claimed reports of a Pentagon effort to withhold news of dozens of U.S. casualties were \u201cbaseless and malicious<\/a>\u201d and a U.S. official\u2019s disclosure to\u00a0The Intercept<\/a> that same day that recent attacks on U.S. bases by Iran had wounded \u201cfar more\u201d personnel than the Pentagon had acknowledged.<\/p>\n The casualty spike resulted from Iranian attacks on at least nine U.S. outposts across the Middle East since July 9, according to a second U.S. official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s military managed to overwhelm<\/a> U.S. air defense systems using a mix of attack drones and advanced ballistic missiles, despite\u00a0months of claims<\/a>\u00a0by President Donald Trump and self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth that Iran\u2019s military\u00a0was annihilated<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last month, the tally of wounded personnel fluctuated by the day in the wake of increased Iranian attacks. On July 21, the casualty count on DCAS for Operation Epic Fury, the military\u2019s official designation for the Iran war, stood at 500. Now, it has shrunk to 431.<\/p>\n For months, The Intercept found anomalies with the counts offered on the DCAS website. On April 21, for example, the number of\u00a0wounded-in-action troops declined by 15<\/a>\u00a0without public acknowledgment by the War Department. Despite repeated questions for months, the Pentagon has not commented on the disparities in its casualty count.<\/p>\n Prior reporting<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0The Intercept<\/a> also found DCAS is\u00a0missing<\/a>\u00a0hundreds of dead and wounded personnel from Epic Fury. The Pentagon list of the names of the dead is still missing Maj. Sorffly Davius, a signals and communication officer with the New York Army National Guard who was assigned to the headquarters of the 42nd Infantry Division and reportedly died of sudden illness while on duty in Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on March 6. Davius\u2019s death was widely acknowledged even as it was excluded from the the official count: Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., spoke about him during a\u00a0memorial service<\/a>\u00a0that month, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,\u00a0recognized<\/a> Davius\u00a0while \u201chonoring our fallen.\u201d<\/p>\n While DCAS provides a running tally of \u201cnon-hostile\u201d deaths \u2014 meaning those who died from accidents or by illness \u2014 it doesn\u2019t include \u201cnon-hostile\u201d injuries. The DCAS figures for Epic Fury show that 65 Navy personnel were wounded in action. Missing, however, are the more than\u00a0200 sailors<\/a>\u00a0treated for smoke inhalation or lacerations due to a March 12 fire that raged aboard the\u00a0USS\u00a0Gerald R. Ford<\/a>.\u00a0The aircraft carrier had been conducting round-the-clock flight operations to, Caine said, \u201cproject combat power<\/a>\u201d in the Middle East.<\/p>\n