{"id":201727,"date":"2020-01-31T08:42:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T08:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=201727"},"modified":"2020-02-04T08:20:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T08:20:21","slug":"pentagon-raises-number-of-us-troops-injured-in-iran-missile-attack-to-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=201727","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon raises number of US troops injured in Iran missile attack to 64"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 Jan 31, 2020<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

US soldiers clear rubble at the Ain al-Asad military airbase in Anbar province after an Iranian missile strike. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The Pentagon has yet again raised the figure of soldiers wounded in Iran’s retaliatory missile attack in Iraq earlier this month to 64, saying they have suffered \u201ctraumatic brain injuries\u201d.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Pentagon chief\u00a0Mark Esper and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff\u00a0General Mark Milley said\u00a0Thursday the military took these types of injuries \u201cvery seriously\u201d\u00a0after criticism\u00a0that the authorities sought to whitewash them.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The number is growing,” Milley added, explaining that it takes time to diagnose and screen soldiers present in the area at the time of the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

The New York Times cited a\u00a0Pentagon statement, which put the total number of injured troops at\u00a068.<\/span><\/p>\n

The report<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0said eight troops were currently being treated in the United States, 21 in Landstuhl, Germany and that another 39 injured troops have\u00a0returned to military operations in Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new\u00a0tally marks at least the fourth instance where US officials have raised the number of US troops injured following Iran’s January 8 missile attack in response to Washington’s assassination of top anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani on January 3.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump administration at first claimed that no Americans had been injured in the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases,” President Donald Trump said a day after the missile strike.<\/span><\/p>\n

A week later, however, the US military said 11 had been injured in the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last Friday and on Tuesday, the tally was brought to a total of 34 and 50 respectively, drawing added scrutiny and criticism against the Trump administration’s initial claims of no casualties.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump has, nonetheless,\u00a0sought to play down the reports, saying he “heard they had headaches”.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries I have seen,\u201d he said last week.<\/span><\/p>\n

The comments were slammed by Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the oldest major American veteran organization which demanded Trump to apologize for his remarks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious injury and one that cannot be taken lightly. TBI is known to cause depression, memory loss, severe headaches, dizziness and fatigue \u2014 all injuries that come with both short- and long-term effects,\u201d VFW national commander William Schmitz said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking on Thursday,\u00a0Esper sought to\u00a0defend\u00a0the president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very concerned about the health and welfare of all of our service members, particularly those that were involved in our operations in Iraq,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soleimani’s assassination order ‘troubled’\u00a0US officials<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Ain al-Asad airbase following Iranian missile strike. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

An NBC report detailing the events surrounding Trump’s order to assassinate General Soleimani said\u00a0the measure “troubled” many current and former American military and intelligence officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Gobsmacked,” was the single-word reaction of a former CIA officer the NBC claimed had “spent a career” working against Gen. Soleimani.<\/span><\/p>\n

The report said US officials feared that the decision, taken in presence of “a very small group of senior leaders”, could set in motion “a full-scale war”\u00a0that could greatly damage the world economy and get the US stuck in “yet another Middle East quagmire”.<\/span><\/p>\n

The report<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>said\u00a0US commanders in Iraq anticipated numerous different forms of attacks following the assassination, from Iranian suicide\u00a0drone strikes to land attacks by\u00a0Iraqi fighters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with General Soleimani, top Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also assassinated in the drone strike. He was the second-in-command of Iraq\u2019s anti-terrorist Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).<\/span><\/p>\n

Many American politicians have\u00a0decried Trump’s assassination of Gen. Soleimani as a dangerous provocation which risks bogging the US down in yet another dangerous military conflict in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed two pieces of legislation aiming to contain Trump\u2019s war powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US assassination of the Middle East\u2019s most prominent anti-terror commanders prompted tens of millions in Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan and elsewhere to take to the streets and vent their anger at the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iranians turned out in numbers unmatched in its history to honor the charismatic commander and call for revenge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Initially Trump said there were no U.S. casualties in the Iranian retaliatory strike. Then the Pentagon admitted that 11 were injured, then 34, 50 and now 64<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,51,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-Iran","category-Iraq"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201727"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201730,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201727\/revisions\/201730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}