President Donald Trump's Pentagon has scrubbed the names of four soldiers from the list of Iran war dead, and the reason why is unclear.
According to The Daily Beast, "The Defense Casualty Analysis System, a Defense Department website that keeps track of those killed during Operation Epic Fury, currently has a tally of seven 'hostile' and seven 'non-hostile' casualties, for a total of 14. But that’s four less than the number of deaths the site had listed on Wednesday, The New York Times reported" — and it's fewer than even Trump himself has acknowledged in speeches.
There are multiple conflicting explanations for this removal.
Per acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez, the omission was a "temporary data disruption" and “The department attempted to explain the anomalies to The New York Times ahead of publication, but given their lack of knowledge in this area, they proceeded to write a non-story. We remain committed to ensuring the utmost accuracy of all casualty reporting.”
However, multiple insider sources said there was a different reason: the Pentagon still doesn't consider Operation Epic Fury to have resumed, and so removed these deaths because they happened after the ceasefire that has since been rescinded.
Trump, throughout the years, has become notorious for his open displays of contempt for war heroes.
He famously dismissed former Arizona Sen. John McCain's status as a prisoner of war because "I like people who weren't captured," and attacked a Gold Star family that spoke against him at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He is also reported to have called the fallen in World War I "losers and suckers" to his staff, though he maintains this reporting was false.