Pete Hegseth accused of protecting up carnage from Iranian missile that badly injured 8 US Marines two weeks in the past
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is being accused of covering up injuries to eight US service members that occurred in a previously unannounced mission aboard a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian cruise missile struck a ‘maritime vessel’ with at least eight soldiers onboard, seven enlisted and one officer, during a September 14 operation, three anonymous American officials told NBC News.
The officials refused to identify the ship’s type, flag or name. The soldiers were not on a US Navy ship, the officials confirmed.
The Marines on board were part of a battalion landing team and suffered from smoke inhalation, possible traumatic brain injuries and other concussion-like symptoms, including headaches, the officials said.
None of the injuries were described as serious, and all eight soldiers returned to duty shortly after the Iranian attack.
In the aftermath, the Pentagon did not immediately announce that the strike injured the US service members.
It took about 10 days before the soldiers were added to the Department of War’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), according to the report.
Neither the Pentagon nor US Central Command has publicly disclosed the September 14 operation, which had not been previously reported before the NBC News dispatch.
Eight US service members were injured after an Iranian missile hit a ship they were on, which notably was not a US Navy vessel, three American officials told NBC News
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has faced accusations of covering up the total casualties linked to the US war on Iran
The injured eight Marines returned to duty shortly after sustaining injuries ranging from smoke inhalation to potential traumatic brain injuries, the officials said
The incident has raised further scrutiny on how the Pentagon is reporting casualties during the Iran war.
So far, there have been 861 US service members wounded and 19 killed in the war, according to the latest DCAS stats.
Over the summer, the Pentagon lowered the number of casualties related to the war after reclassifying some deaths or injuries, prompting a flurry of transparency concerns.
One official told NBC News that the delay in reporting casualties could be due to service members not immediately reporting the incidents into the DCAS database.
DCAS does not provide identifying information about the soldiers, nor information on when, where, or how the troops were injured or killed.
Multiple Democratic lawmakers have accused Hegseth of covering up the total number of casualties, including Congressman Pat Ryan of New York, who has said the delay in DCAS reports represents a ‘blatant, unprecedented cover-up.’
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Hegseth accusing the Pentagon of obfuscating the number of casualties linked to the Iran war.
The article provoked rage among some former Trump allies who have turned on the President over the conflict.
Oil tankers have become frequent targets in the US-Iran war as they attempt to navigate the Strait of Hormuz
After initially estimating that the Iran war would only last a few weeks, Trump now says he expects the conflict to last until November
‘If this report is true, it means we are using US troops to escort oil tankers through the SOH, where oil had been flowing freely before we started this disastrous war of choice at the behest of the Israelis,’ said Joe Kent, a former intelligence official who resigned from the Trump administration in protest of the conflict.
‘This is a reckless and frivolous gamble with American lives, which we are foolishly opting to put at risk – not to thwart active terrorist threats to the homeland, but as an attempt to mitigate the damage we inflicted on ourselves and the global economy.’
Over 50,000 US soldiers are deployed to the Middle East under Central Command’s authority.
American servicemen in the region have been deployed to help US allies in the region defend against incoming strikes, attack positions within the Islamic Republic and enforce a blockade against Iranian vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump, who initially said the war would be over in weeks, has more recently said he expects the conflict to stretch at least until November after the midterm elections.
A meeting between some US and Iranian officials at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last week did not yield any solid agreements between the two.
The president also spurned a seven-day plan to end the war, telling reporters over the weekend: ‘I’m rejecting their deal.’
‘They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,’ Trump said. ‘You know you don’t read that, you don’t see that in the fake news. We’re winning tremendously. We have total control of the Hormuz Strait, massive amounts of oil are coming out of the Hormuz Strait.’
The Pentagon, White House and Central Command were contacted for comment.
