While the Trump administration publicly shared details on an Iranian attack on a U.S. military base in Jordan last Friday that killed at least two U.S. service members, it withheld information on three other Iranian strikes from the week prior that hurt many members of the U.S. military, officials revealed Monday to The New York Times.
“Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters,” the Times’ report reads. “But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted.”
A total of 17 U.S. service members have been killed in the deeply unpopular U.S. war against Iran and hundreds wounded. Throughout the conflict, however, the Pentagon’s casualty figures have been contested, with reports suggesting they are far greater than what the Pentagon has officially acknowledged.
The defense department has also been accused of withholding information on the damage inflicted on U.S. military installations in the Middle East, with the scale of destruction far exceeding what the Pentagon has officially acknowledged, according to one Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery.
Furthermore, the Times reported that the Pentagon has withheld figures on the war's broader drain on U.S. military resources.
“In the past several months, the Trump administration has failed to disclose how the Iran war has drained U.S. supplies of critical, costly weapons, and how Iran retained and rebuilt substantial missile capabilities,” the Times reported.
The Trump administration’s withholding of information related to the war has led to some confusion among President Donald Trump's supporters, including Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, who on Sunday said she couldn’t “understand” how Iran was capable of attacking U.S. assets in the Middle East given Trump’s claim that its military capabilities had been “destroyed 100%” as early as March 14.