Pentagon officials denied that they made any effort to downplay or delay the revelation of American military casualties in the January 8 Iranian missile strike on the Ayn al-Asad airbase in Iraq.
President Trump reported on January 8 that there were no American casualties, and this was the official story for over a week. On Thursday, the Pentagon confirmed that 11 US troops had actually been taken out of Iraq for treatment for possible concussions related to the strike.
There was no explanation for the eight solid days between the incident and the Pentagon having casualties figures. They insist that not only were they not trying to hide them, but that Defense Secretary Mark Esper only found out about them a few hours before the American public did.
It is hard to imagine this as an oversight, considering it was a high-profile attack, and 11 concussed US soldiers don’t just get sent to Kuwait and/or Germany without someone knowing about it. The lack of knowledge at the top would almost have to be a conscious decision not to hear about them.
It isn’t hard to see why, with the administration choosing to deescalate with Iran after the attack that they would just as soon not make the casualties public at the time.
With the notification of attack pending, one would think that soldiers would have been taken out of the harm’s way. The question of competence may be asked. Not that this is the case — purely speculation. But with so much incompetence being rewarded in Government and Military — it may be necessary to ask,
They were; however the bases had to be kept minimally staffed. The U.S. military really seemed to have a good idea of what was to be hit.
No-one was killed or seriously injured. They were far enough away from the impacts to escape shrapnel and debris. Concussion injury until recently usually hasn’t been counted as a serious injury.
Doing so is a recent change owing more to recognition of concussion as a serious sport injury with lasting debilitating consequences, extended to war injury.
In both cases, it used to be something expected to be shrugged off with a little time out; a bruised brain, not biochemical change.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-early-warning/hours-of-forewarning-saved-u-s-iraqi-lives-from-irans-missile-attack-idUSKBN1ZC218
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-al-asad-idUSKBN1ZC26C
There’s nothing particularly sinister about wanting to avoid inflaming U.S.-Iran tensions at a popular level. Trump and Khomenei are keeping it ‘personal’.
I fully agree with you. Anything to prevent inflaming the situation. Yes, and it is actually commendable that concussions are being taken more seriously.
I am deeply concerned by the entire process of decision making in foreign policy — if it can be called that any more. There is something unhinged in the decision making, in haphazard execution (no pun intended) of policies, if indeed, there are policies to be found there.
It is just this climate of infernal political infighting, of incompetent people still around making new mistakes — that makes one question just about anything.
True; decision making seems restricted to how to dig deeper into a quagmire and still be able to dig deeper, not get out.
That base houses 2000 service members. How did the 1,989 members walked away?
OR… Perhaps it’s just in keeping with a consistent pattern of dishonesty dating back at least – oh, say a half a century.