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While news headlines circulated the announcement that 2 US soldiers were killed by an Iranian strike in Jordan, an investigation from the New York Times was finding that even before then “dozens” more had been injured.
Repeated strikes on US bases in Jordan resulted in dozens injured and multiple helicopters damaged, all withheld from public record by the Pentagon, the investigation found.
“The episode is the latest example during the Iran conflict of the tension between what the Pentagon says is the need for operational security and the government’s obligation to inform the public about the conduct of the war,” the Times wrote.
The later strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, Jordan, left 2 US solders dead and 1 missing presumed dead. A day later, in an unrelated incident, a soldier was killed in Iraq while undertaking the disposal of an unexploded Iranian drone.
The Pentagon says Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Private Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, were those killed in Jordan, and that “remains” of another, unidentified individual have been found. They are presumed to belong to the third soldier, described earlier as missing.
“After a thorough search, US military personnel found unidentified remains at the location earlier today. An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing,” US Central Command said.
If confirmed to be the third soldier, it raises the death toll since shooting began with Iran to 18.
A casualty cover-up
The Times is not the first outlet to require confidential sourcing to figure out the true number of wounded that accompany the deaths statistic.
An investigation by The Intercept found that 303 soldiers had been officially reported as killed or injured since March 1st, but that it didn’t include another 15 which had been wounded in the attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 27th.
“This is, quite obviously, a subject that [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth and the White House want to keep under major wraps,” said one War Department official who spoke to the paper on the condition of anonymity, and who described it as a “casualty cover-up”.
As the war drags on, and becomes less and less popular, the Pentagon has increasingly restricted public knowledge across a variety of subjects, including not only killed and injured, but number and position of Iranian strikes, their results, and images of them.
In a brief call with NewsNation, President Trump said that the soldiers died in service of America, while reiterating his commitment to not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. This was not the motive behind the return to the war and an ending of the memorandum of understanding signed with Iran, however, which was entirely catalyzed through countering attempts by the Iranian military to target shipping which the US and Oman tried to guide along the southern passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Seeing this as a violation of the MoU, Iran attacked those ships, for which the US retaliated, and escalations continued from the American side including by targeting bridges and a water desalination plant in southern Iran. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: The body of a soldier killed in an Iranian strike is brought back to the US. PC: US Army Photo.
