<\/p>\n
The Pentagon quietly<\/span> acknowledged additional Iran war deaths on Friday evening after The Intercept repeatedly demanded an explanation for inaccurate statistics on a War Department website tracking U.S. casualties from the conflict.<\/p>\n Almost 900 U.S. troops have been wounded or killed in the war with Iran, according to the official Pentagon count, including the two deaths added on Friday.\u00a0This raises the Pentagon\u2019s total to 21 dead.<\/p>\n The additional war dead include 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 died while on duty in Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on March 6. For more than six months, The Intercept<\/a> has raised<\/a> Davius\u2019s case<\/a> in dozens<\/a> of emails<\/a> and phone conversations<\/a> with Pentagon officials and publicly<\/a> in 10 articles.<\/p>\n The Pentagon recently revamped the website<\/a> of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS \u2014 which provides official counts of dead and wounded for\u00a0Congress and the White House \u2014 to include more detailed casualty category tables. But it initially listed no \u201cnon-hostile\u201d illness or injury fatalities, despite the Pentagon announcing<\/a> in March that Davius died \u201cas a result of a non-combat related incident.\u201d<\/p>\n At first, the military claimed that Davius was involved in another operation<\/a> instead of Epic Fury \u2014 the original designation of the Iran war. Two weeks ago, however, The Intercept revealed<\/a> that a recent National Guard news release<\/a> admitted that when \u201cPresident Donald Trump made the decision to attack Iran and launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28, the [42nd Infantry] division headquarters began conducting combat operations.\u201d The 42nd served as the primary headquarters leading what became, according to Maj. Gen. Jack James, the division commander, the \u201clargest and first long-range precision fires campaign in the history of the United States Army.\u201d James specifically saluted Davius, whom the Guard admitted was \u201cconducting operations\u201d when he died.<\/p>\n Last week, The Intercept pointed the Pentagon to the non-hostile illness or injury casualty count for Epic Fury on the website, and emphasized its tally showing zero deaths was not possible.<\/p>\n \u201cI will check within,\u201d Patricia Kreuzberger, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Tuesday. \u201cLet me reach out to leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n Three days later, and after repeated follow-up messages on Friday, the tally was updated, to 1.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In addition to Davius, the DCAS death count now also includes an unidentified Navy suicide that occurred last month, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. DCAS currently lists this death as \u201cpending,\u201d despite the recent addition of a \u201cself-inflicted\u201d category to the website.<\/p>\n A \u201cWar Department official\u201d told The Intercept by email on Sunday that \u201cthe Department is introducing a \u2018Pending Adjudication\u2019 category to track the status of active duty casualties pending final categorization and reporting in DCAS.\u201d She added: \u201cThis new category will allow the Department to minimize reporting delays while ensuring data consistency between the DoW and Joint Staff.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cpending\u201d designation, however, isn\u2019t new. The Pentagon re-introduced it to DCAS in mid-July, and major discrepancies have continued in the tally since.<\/p>\n Many casualties remain uncounted in DCAS, including a sailor who suffered a\u00a0non-combat-related injury<\/a>\u00a0aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln as it was involved in \u201cstrike missions in support of Operation Epic Fury\u201d on March 25.<\/p>\n Most Iran war casualties in the official count \u2014 454 personnel as of Friday \u2014 have occurred since July 7, after<\/a> the Trump administration claimed the conflict ended. At that time, the Pentagon switched from counting casualties under Epic Fury to the anodyne moniker<\/a> \u201cOverseas Operations.\u201d<\/p>\n The most recent casualties are three Army personnel wounded in action this month. The latest known Iran war fatality is Capt. Bianca Wilkerson, 37, of Norfolk, Virginia, who died on September 18 from a \u201ccoronary issue,\u201d according to her brother. He said she returned from Saudi Arabia on September 10 and was headed back but died on the return flight, according to reporting<\/a> by the Virginian-Pilot. A U.S. official told The Intercept that Wilkerson died \u201cas a result of a non-combat-related incident,\u201d but after nearly a month, DCAS still lists no non-hostile illness or injury deaths.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,\u201d Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a joint statement on Friday<\/a> after the House Armed Services Committee discovered \u201ca discrepancy in the Pentagon\u2019s reporting of casualty numbers\u201d and brought it to \u201cthe Trump Administration\u2019s attention.\u201d They continued: \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n