Since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury, triggering the military conflict with Iran, at least 624 U.S. service members have been wounded and 18 have died, according to official records.
But last week, as the Pentagon updated its figures on the number of service members killed or wounded since the war began in February, it allegedly reclassified four deaths previously attributed to Operation Epic Fury, moving them to the "Overseas Operations" category. The unusual change raised questions about transparency and as to why the department altered the official casualty count on the website that tracks those figures.
First reported by The New York Times, the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), the Pentagon's database for tracking military casualties and fatalities, listed 18 U.S. service member deaths tied to the U.S.-Iran war at one point last week. By Thursday, that number had been reduced to 14 after four service members killed in Jordan and northern Iraq between July 17 and July 19 were removed from the Operation Epic Fury casualty count and moved to the "Overseas Operations" category.
Three military officials told The New York Times that one reason for the change was that the four deaths occurred after President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire in April. Pentagon officials, including chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell and acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez, attributed the discrepancies to "temporary data disruptions" affecting the website that hosts the database, adding that the anomalies would be "quickly fixed" on July 23. As of July 28, however, the database remained inaccessible.
This is one of the worst instances of the Fake News media manufacturing lies out of thin air for absolutely no reason at all but to cause distress among the American people.
— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) July 24, 2026
Our Pentagon Press Office gave the New York Times a courtesy off-the-record phone call explaining in… pic.twitter.com/UEppYBT264
CBS News noted that when the Pentagon first released the names of two of the three service members killed in an Iranian attack in Jordan earlier in July, it initially classified their deaths under Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. military mission targeting ISIS. The Defense Department later amended the releases to state that the service members had died during "overseas operations."
As noted by The New York Times, since the end of the ceasefire and the collapse of the peace memorandum between the United States and Iran, the Pentagon has released limited information about military operations and troop injuries and has not disclosed Iranian strikes on bases housing U.S. troops, arguing that doing so would compromise operational security.
With that being said, reports suggest the number of U.S. military casualties since July 7 has risen to nearly 100. According to official data, 11 service members have been killed in hostile incidents, while seven have died in accidents related to the war since February. Those seven deaths stem from the crash of a U.S. military KC-135 refueling aircraft in Iraq back in March.
Valdez told The New York Times that comparing the number of fatalities under the Trump and Joe Biden administrations is "an attempt to politicize the sacrifices of America's finest warriors in Iran," adding in an email that the Trump administration remains committed to "ensuring the utmost accuracy of all casualty reporting" during the war.
