(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Since July 7, four US troops have been killed, and more than 200 have been wounded in the Iran war, according to the Pentagon’s official casualty database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System.
The four dead US soldiers include three who were killed in a July 17 Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan, and they have been identified as Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Sgt. Angel Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park.
The fourth soldier died on July 18 in Iraq, identified as Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, a 30-year-old father from North Carolina, during what the US military called a controlled demolition of an unexploded Iranian drone. A US official told The New York Times that Swinton was not involved in the actual detonation but was hit by flying debris from the blast.
The database says that 207 US troops were also wounded, including 182 US Army soldiers, 21 US Navy personnel, and four US Air Force airmen. Many of the wounded sustained injuries during Iranian attacks on US bases in Jordan, which became a frequent target of the IRGC during the latest exchange of strikes, which have been paused since Friday.
The 211 casualties are considered part of “Overseas Operations,” which began on July 7, as the Pentagon separated them from the earlier casualties in the war. During “Operation Epic Fury,” the codename for the first months of the war, at least 14 US troops were killed, and 417 were wounded, for a total of 642 casualties since President Donald Trump launched the war with Israel on February 28.
US and Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28 have killed around 3,500 Iranians, including more than 50 since the US renewed strikes several weeks ago. In April, Iranian officials said nearly half of those killed were civilians, including the 120 school children killed in the US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran.
The Trump administration has consistently downplayed casualties in the war, with the Pentagon only admitting to more than 100 of the recent injuries after The New York Times reported that it didn’t disclose dozens of injuries in Jordan in the days leading up to the deadly July 17 attack.
President Trump has also downplayed the casualties by sharing statistics of other US wars with higher casualty rates, and he claimed that the four soldiers who were killed had said that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” as he was going to attend a dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
“They said, and they — all of them said very strongly — we can’t let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have a nuclear weapon. So we’re going to honor them. And it’s one of the hardest things to do. For me, it’s one of the hardest things to do as a president. But, has to be done,” Trump told reporters.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
