Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Friday, July 24, 2026

Three military officials and a Pentagon spokesman gave conflicting explanations for why the number of Americans killed in the Iran war had changed.

More

Alternate links: Google News | Twitter

On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran.

By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war.

Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list " three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq " because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.

The officials described sensitive internal discussions on the condition of anonymity.

The acting press secretary for the Pentagon, Joel Valdez, attributed the change instead to "temporary data disruptions" on the website that he suggested would be quickly fixed.

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

From the article:

"Since the cease-fire collapsed, the Pentagon has provided little information about the American military strategy and has been slow to release information about troops' injuries. The last major Pentagon briefing on the war was in early May."

The Defense Department has said that disclosing Iranian strikes on bases where U.S. troops are housed would compromise operational security.

The Pentagon withheld information about three Iranian strikes last week in Jordan that 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.

After an Iranian strike in Jordan on Friday killed three soldiers, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, acknowledged that the number of U.S. military casualties since July 7 had risen to nearly 100.

Defense Department officials say they are bound by law to report troop deaths, but not injuries. Critics, including Democratic senators, say the Trump administration is obligated to inform the public about the conduct of the war.


Trump really isn't good with numbers - a few suckers zapped here, some more losers blasted there, machts nichts - as long the money keeps rolling in.

And for the edification of any of this creature's apologists, these numbers represent people - so stop helping him sh#t all over their memories.

#1 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2026-07-24 06:34 AM | Reply

FWIW: Posted already

#2 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-07-24 07:02 AM | Reply

They're on eternity leave with Mitch.

#3 | Posted by Nixon at 2026-07-24 08:03 AM | Reply

The following HTML tags are allowed in comments: a href, b, i, p, br, ul, ol, li and blockquote. Others will be stripped out. Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

Anyone can join this site and make comments. To post this comment, you must sign it with your Drudge Retort username. If you can't remember your username or password, use the lost password form to request it.
Username:
Password:

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy

Drudge Retort