As the Iran War Escalates, Is the U.S. Hiding Its Toll?

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This is a daily. On Monday, the war in Iran escalated in dangerous new ways. Drawing in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia as the Trump administration real from the Iranian killing of US service members in Jordan.

Today, my colleague, Pentagon reporter Eric Schmidt, talks us through the latest attacks, and how they've coincided with the decision by the US military to disclose less and less about the conflict. It's Tuesday, July 21st.

“Eric, welcome back, O is good to have you.”

Thank you, Michael, good to be here. We want to talk to you about what feels like a very sad new milestone in the collapse of the US Iran ceasefire in the past week or so, which is the death of multiple US service members in an attack over the weekend. Can you just tell us exactly what happened there?

Yes, so the attack really culminates more than a week of exchanges, hostile exchanges between Iran and the United States, is the ceasefire really falls apart. And on Friday, sadly, a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones. Slip through the air defense is at a major air base in Jordan,

where US forces are stationed.

And at least two, there may have been a third US Army soldier were killed.

There were several others who were badly injured, who were evacuated to Iranian hospitals, and several others wanted who were able to return to duties soon enough. But this Michael was significant because these two and possibly three deaths in Jordan, along with the death of another Army soldier in Iraq

that happened the following day when they were detonating a Iranian drone, brings the total number of Americans killed in the war to 17. And Eric, what do we know about these service members who were killed in this attack in Jordan? So the Army soldiers who were killed in this attack,

remembers of an air defense unit that had been positioned in Jordan to help protect the base. And it's led some US officials to speculate that the Iranians in targeting this base were also trying to specifically target the defenders of the base, the Patriot,

and time missile batteries and such. We don't have proof of that yet, but that is one suggestion that investigators are looking at, that the Iranians, as they try and figure out ways to evade American air defenses are actually also trying to knock out

the very soldiers who man those defenses. Well, I'm glad you're raising the question of Iran's military sophistication

“in this moment because what I think struck many of us about this attack”

beyond the obvious tragedy of these soldiers dying is that so long after President Trump claimed that Iran's military had been destroyed. That's the word he used, destroyed by American military forces. It's becoming clear that Iran's military capabilities remain robust and lethal.

That's right. I mean, obviously, the more than 13,000 strikes that the United States took in the first part of the war, very badly damaged and even decimated some parts of the Iranian military, the Air Force and the Navy, for instance.

But the Iranians have always retained large numbers of attack drones.

Large numbers of the boats that lay mines and large numbers of these missiles that they're now firing at the United States. They were literally able to dig out from some of the bomb sites, the missile launchers and the missiles themselves, some of which they're now launching back at the United States.

And so the U.S. is having to re-strike some of these targets in this kind of tit-for-tat exchange. We've seen every day now for over a week.

and essentially reorganize itself for these kinds of attacks?

It's not only possible, it's almost certain. American officials said privately and even gradually publicly acknowledged the Iranians have been able to use this time the last several months to kind of dig out some of their sites that were buried, rebuild some of their missile and drone capability in particular

because those are really the two threats that can both close the straight of our moose as well as threaten American troops and others that are around the region. What this is underscored is just the ability of Iran to withstand the might of the United States and Israeli militaries and still survive and survive with a kick.

Even in a degraded state, Iranians still are quite a formidable force for this American military in the least.

And they do not resemble a regime that President Trump has described as desperate

to make a deal at this moment quite the opposite. Eric, as Iran has demonstrated this muscularity over the past two weeks, you have been reporting on the absence of a certain level of transparency on the part of the U.S. military to disclose the extent of Iran's attacks. That's right.

Iran has been able to successfully attack several bases in the Middle East, including in Jordan. And in fact, my colleagues and I learned that before this deadly attack on Friday, there were three previous attacks on the same basis in Jordan, over the previous three or four days.

And that American troops had been wounded. It had been injured. Wow. It's been able to go back to duty. But what it showed was that the Iranians were zeroing in

on these bases. And the Pentagon didn't want to disclose that. Now. You know what? I mean, I don't --

No, sir, commanders. Why should we tell the Iranians that they're getting closer and closer to their ultimate target, getting some barracks or hitting

“other major target inside of Jordan or any other country where you have bases?”

But this lack of transparency by the Pentagon is also important because it reveals this tension between what the military calls operational security that is keeping key details of a battle, or a wartime situation away from the enemy. But at the same time, sharing important information with the American public

about how this war is going. And it's not going really well right now for the American military. And so they would argue that why should we put out this bad information in a way that would tell the Iranians, you know, you're having some success? What keep going?

Or, you know, zeroing on that target or this target? And so the reaction from the Pentagon is to clamp down on that kind of information until they're forced to release it as they were any time, of course, there's an American fatality in a combat zone. That forced them to acknowledge not only the two tragic deaths,

but the fact that there were a whole bunch of other people injured in that attack. And then my colleagues and I learned that there had been these other service numbers wounded in previous attacks. Well, Eric, how does the level of information we're getting from the Pentagon now, or I guess the lack of information?

“How does that compare to what the Pentagon was disclosing at the start of the war?”

And over these past many months?

Well, Michael, the level of information released by this Pentagon has never been

great compared to previous Pentagon's, but early in this war, the Pentagon did from time to time put out announcements not only of the few instances where tragically there had been Americans killed, but also kind of a running tally of the number of service members who had been injured. And we also had an opportunity that early phase of the combat

to ask Secretary P. Hexeth and General Dan Kane questions. Periodically, they were whole news conferences. These briefings weren't terribly helpful, but at least they made themselves available for questioning. There has not been a Pentagon news conference since early May. So this change in the Pentagon's transparency,

it seems to coincide as you're hinting at with the ceasefire. And I wonder if the ceasefire has become a cover? A rationale for the administration to tell us less and less about this war when, as we all, I think, understand the ceasefire has been shredded and is in name only.

“I think that's a really important point.”

Remember, the President tried to, in certain times, warn the American public bit in a major war as the U.S. was certainly in the beginning, there would be casualties. That would be tragic, but that's a part of war.

is, the hostile action is over.

We're wrapping this up. We're going to try and work through this negotiations and the longer-term problems. Yes, there may be periodic exchanges in the straight-of-harmuse, but that the period of high risk for American forces is largely over. And now, for there to be not only that two and possibly three in Jordan,

but another soldier killed in Iraq. Suddenly, that's jolting to the American public. I say, wait a minute, we're going to ceasefire. Why are American troops being killed again? Right. That's very hard.

“I think for this President's administration to deal with.”

Right. If the administration returned to regular briefings and to regular disclosures about injuries, for instance,

it would be an acknowledgement that we're basically back in a full scale.

Or, and in a moment like this past weekend, that the U.S. is not able to protect its forces. That's right. And not only able to protect its forces, but it reminds people what did the United States go to war in the first place for? What have we gotten out of this war so far?

Is this war has become more popular in Congress? Boats are coming up on a regular basis to end the war. And you have public opinion polls show the war more and more on popular as the days go by. And of course, the midterm elections are looming you know, ever closer in November.

This is a real problem for the President and his party. But it's at this moment that the public, the Congress, want this war to be over, that all signs point just to the opposite. All indications are that this war could be escalating in a very dangerous way

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“Eric, where exactly are we in the escalation of this conflict”

since the ceasefire fell apart? It absolutely seems to be the case that neither side is operating as if a ceasefire was ever reached. And as you said, that's put us in a pretty dangerous new phase of the conflict.

Well, we are. If you just look kind of list of the things that have changed, it's starting to look a lot like the way the war was being fought in the early days. It just kind of took some of these off.

First of all, the number of countries has grown sharply.

It's gone from being just a ticket for tap between United States and Iran to join in most countries in the region. The second point is the scale of the targets. The U.S. had gone from fairly focused on specific sites

in and around the straight of our moves that were threatening shipping there. And now the targets are broad of the across the entire country and the numbers are up quite dramatically. And then third, the United States had quietly started

to send some of its forces home. Some of the aircraft that were used in the initial campaign to fighters and strike aircraft had been quietly sent back. Now, that's being reversed. And some of those attack planes are rushing back

and anticipation of possible escalating attacks by the United States. Well, let's take each of these one by one. And I want to start with the list of countries, the growing list of countries becoming involved, or I guess in some sense, we involved in this conflict.

Right, that's countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and of course Jordan, as we've been talking about here, the Iranians discovered early on that not only attacking American bases,

but attacking civilian infrastructure energy sites

that was much more broadly felt. Right, Iran's strategy there seemed to be create as much pain for America's allies in the Middle East as possible so that those allies would pressure the U.S. to end its war against Iran.

Or, if that failed, it would perhaps make these countries Kuwait Bahrain Qatar rethink their decision to host the U.S. military within their borders. That's right, they're resuming that strategy, of inflicting pain on their neighbors,

“but they're also doing something else it's important.”

They're threatening to activate one of their key proxies who, up till now, has kind of stayed on the sidelines of this five-month-old war, and that's the Houthis in Yemen. And Houthis, long time, foes of Saudi Arabia, of course,

and Saudi Arabia jumps in and strikes the Houthis apparently, you know, worried about this threat. And the Houthis and response that now said just in the last few days that they will close the Red Sea to Saudi traffic. And what's the significance of that?

It's significant because not only will the state

of our most now be in conflict, but a second important regional waterway,

the Red Sea is now in play in this conflict. Right, which given how important Saudi Arabia is in the global, oil industry will probably be in that it will increase oil prices if the Houthis located successful. And what strikes me is that we're now seeing

the mere threat of the war spreading. In this case, Iran saying we're going to activate the Houthis leading to actual consequences. Saudi Arabia, it seems, launches a preemptive attack to stop the Houthis.

“That's what an escalatory cycle starts to look like.”

That's right. And that's one of the great fears, of course, that this thing which has been somewhat tamped down during the ceasefire period is now going to become roaring back, not just in the immediate areas around the Persian Gulf

and straight of our moose, but now a second area,

a second front, if you will, that's emerging that hadn't in a real issue in this conflict, up to now. So let's turn to the second item you mentioned, Eric, as we try to understand the escalation of his conflict, which is what you said was a broader set of targets.

So what are those targets? Yeah, it's a broader set of targets for both sides. The United States is now not only going after drone, storage sites and missile silos and things like that, but they're also going after civilian infrastructure

that the military says serves both military and civilian purposes. These are bridges in particular, railway bridges and other bridges that enable the Iranians to send forces and equipment from other parts of the country to the region that's affected down near the straight of our moose.

The military's argument, the Pentagon's argument, is that they knock out these bridges and cut off access to the coastal areas where the finding is most intense. That will put more pressure on the Iranian regime. Well, the Iranian basically said,

"Okay, you want to play that game. We'll up our anti-two." And they're striking a new set of targets new in recent weeks and they include energy sites in these countries and desalination plants, which are so important to depend on desalination

to provide fresh drinking water. So you have both sides escalating not only in terms of the number of countries or the parts of the countries that are being hit, but the kinds of targets that can inflict pain on both sides.

Of course, what's notable about all the targets you just mentioned, whether it's bridges, energy plants, desalination plants, is that they have traditionally sat in a category of targets that were seen as off limits in traditional warfare. Because they are, especially in the case of a desalination plan,

such crucial pieces of civilian infrastructure.

So now we're not just talking about escalation of war, but escalation of what all sides of this conflict see as a tolerable human toll. That's right. And in some cases, on the US side, striking these targets

when President Trump is threatened to do so has raised concerns that this would be in violation of human rights laws to go after purely civilian targets. Now the military quickly argues that they have taken purely civilian targets off the table and they're hitting only targets that serve

some kind of dual purpose or there's a military component to this. But the military is leaning into this. Again, to put as much pressure on the Iranian government as it can right now.

“Okay, so I think that leads us to the final way in which you said this war.”

It's escalating which is the US buildup in the region. What do we know about that and how big a buildup is it? Yes, so the United States has kept about 15,000 troops in the immediate area to enforce the US naval blockade, which has been put back into effect by President Trump.

and extending into Europe who are supporting this campaign.

The United States in recent weeks as the ceasefire kind of settled in, tenuously as it was, started quietly sending some of its forces home, some of the fighter jets and other kind of planes that had been there for many weeks, if not months. But what we've seen just in the last few days, as we seem to be on the brink of a new escalation, the United States is rushing new war planes from Europe.

F-16s and F-35s in particular from England and from Germany. Back to the Middle East in anticipation that they may be needed in any of the broader set-up strikes if President Trump saw orders. I understand that the number of US forces in the region has more or less remained the same. But our colleagues have reported in the times that,

inside Iran, some increasingly worried that the post ceasefire back and forth

could eventually pave the way for some kind of ground operation,

“is any kind of ground operation being discussed in this moment based on your reporting?”

Well, other than the President himself discussing it, no, not really. The President keeps talking about the possibility of ground options. Perhaps Seizing Carg Island, a key oil hub in the Northern Persian Gulf, or some of the small islands in the Strait of Hormus that would allow the American military to suppress Iranian fire.

But military commanders tell me that even though they're ready to carry out those orders, if the President directs them, there's really no appetite on Capitol Hill or in the American public in general for putting

boots on that ground, even in a limited ground operation.

Like the President's been talking about. So where's all of this leave any possible negotiations or diplomacy? It does not seem like active diplomacy is going on at the moment. Well, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, just before you left on a trip to Asia, said that diplomacy is still an option that the United States would want to pursue.

It's kind of hard to see that happening right now, though, given where the situation is. We have heard that other countries, such as Qatar and Pakistan, are trying to mediate a truce, if you will, to go back to the ceasefire that was put in place. Right now, it's looking pretty hard for both sides to climb down

from these most recent attacks on each other. So Eric, just to end, I want to bring everything we're talking about here together. I mean, essentially what you have explained here is that just as the war is escalating in ways that feel very unpredictable and very dangerous. We're getting less and less information from the Trump administration about

the state of the conflict.

“And so what in your mind is the potential consequence of that combination?”

Well, look, the risk is that the true dimensions of the war are being kept from the American public. The literary officials will continue to argue to me and my colleagues that they need operational security. They can't share every last detail, particularly those that the Iranians could use

to their benefit. But there's plenty of information they can share. And Michael, as we're sitting here recording this episode, depending on Steve Spokesman, John Pernel, disclosed this since July 7th. So 100 American service members have been injured in the war.

That's a lot. And most of them, he said, have returned to duty. And that's the progress that we get this information.

“But it didn't come until after the New York Times reported on these three”

undisclosed attacks on Americans based in Jordan. That happened over the past week or so. I mean, you hope that this would be standard practice. And it has been for pentagons in the past, kind of present this information. But it's not anymore. This war is now heating up in a major way.

And this is exactly the moment when we need greater transparency for the pentagon. Not last. Why, Eric? Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, Michael.

On Monday afternoon, the White House said that the bodies of the two American service members killed in Jordan would be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and received by President Trump during a ceremony later this week. In a social media post, Trump promised revenge for the killings, writing, quote, "Every time Iran kills an American soldier,

they will pay for that killing many times over."

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