五角大楼面向公众开放的伤亡统计数据库数据出现异常：伊朗战争美军死伤人数突然下调，数据库超过一日没有更新，统计数字持续低估冲突伤亡规模。美国国防部官员解释，数据偏差源于技术故障。
数据异常引发外界一大疑问：特朗普政府此前宣称代号 “史诗怒火行动”(伊朗战争官方行动名称)已于 5 月结束，五角大楼用于追踪各类军事行动伤亡的后台统计系统，是否因此受到影响。
一名美国官员向美国广播公司证实，自 5 月所谓行动结束日期之后，美军持续对伊朗实施空袭，但这类行动如今被划归为 “海外行动”。该表述十分模糊，并非常规战争的官方归类方式，这也直接造成外界无法厘清，本轮战事的阵亡与受伤官兵应当如何统计。
此事招致多名国会议员强烈批评。议员认为，政府刻意模糊伤亡数据、通过重新定义战争名目，试图规避《战争权力决议》中规定的限制：未经国会授权，海外军事行动最长不得超过 60 天。
长期以来，任何冲突中美军伤亡名单，都被视作衡量战争真实代价最直观的标尺，也是检验政府信息透明度的核心标准。
拜登政府时期曾任空军人力与预备役事务助理部长的亚历克斯・瓦格纳表示：“准确的伤亡通报，是大多数普通美国人感知战争代价的唯一纽带。毕竟战争的重担，几乎全部由占总人口不足 1% 的军人及其家属承担。”
美国与伊朗 6 月签署谅解备忘录，开启为期 60 天的谈判窗口期。但本月早些时候，特朗普宣布停火宣告终结，双方再度交火，近两周美军连续每晚发动空袭。
自伊朗战争爆发以来，公开伤亡数据库的数字就多次波动。而矛盾在周四达到顶峰：登记阵亡美军人数从 18 人下调至 14 人，相当于直接剔除了停火破裂、战事重启之后，在约旦、伊拉克阵亡的 4 名美军官兵。 数据库内登记受伤军人数量，也从周三的 482 人下降至周四的 420 人。 截至周五晚间，这组修正后的异常数据仍未更正。
调整后的数字，还与五角大楼近期公开表态相互矛盾。五角大楼发言人肖恩・帕内尔本周一称：脆弱停火协议瓦解、7 月 7 日战火重燃之后，又有近百名美军官兵负伤。但数据库从未体现这一新增伤亡。
国防伤亡分析系统(DCAS) 是五角大楼面向公众、汇总历次战争美军伤亡数据的核心平台。国防部汇总各军种上报数据维护该网站，也是联邦政府官方认可的战争伤亡公开权威记录。
五角大楼代理新闻发言人乔尔・巴尔德斯称网站遭遇技术故障。 “国防部注意到，国防伤亡分析系统(DCAS)官网临时出现数据异常。我们正协同各军种排查、修复网站故障。”
当被进一步追问这类数据错误何以发生、为何迟迟没有修正数字时，五角大楼并未予以回应。
目前尚不清楚，五角大楼官员是否认定新一轮持续交火属于全新军事行动。通过这种方式，把一场大范围冲突人为分割成多个阶段进行区分统计，在美国历史上前所未有。
美军同期还有其他持续开展的军事行动，例如在伊拉克、叙利亚打击极端组织 IS 的“坚定决心行动”。早在伊朗战争爆发前，美军就在该区域部署兵力。理论上，原本隶属于这项反恐任务的部队，在纸面统计上可以划入另一独立行动范畴，近期阵亡的部分士兵就属于这类情况。
历史上美国重大军事冲突虽然会经历不同阶段，作战规模、烈度不断变化，但从来不会以此为依据，将不同阶段伤亡拆分、视作两场独立战争分别统计。
5 月 1 日，特朗普致函国会，宣布伊朗战争对应的 “史诗怒火行动” 已经 “终止”。5 月 5 日，国务卿马尔科・卢比奥在白宫简报会上向媒体确认，“史诗怒火行动” 已经结束。
然而 7 月 6 日停火破裂、空袭几乎再度常态化之后，人们开始质疑：过去两周产生的伤亡是否被单独另行统计。这种拆分统计方式并无先例。
肯塔基州共和党众议员托马斯・马西周四在社交平台 X 发文表示：“五角大楼假装存在两场伊朗战争，中间仅仅隔着一段短暂停火。” 马西称这套说辞是 “荒唐的障眼法”，目的就是规避《战争权力决议》60 天期限，绕开国会授权发动军事冲突。
周四，参议院军事委员会民主党议员联名致函国防部长皮特・赫格塞思，要求五角大楼解释伤亡统计乱象，要求完整、准确统计伊朗战争爆发以来所有阵亡、负伤美军官兵。
由夏威夷州民主党参议员玛齐・广野牵头、委员会另外 11 名民主党议员共同署名的信函写道：“美国民众、国会、现役军人及其家属，有权知晓战争付出的完整人命代价。目前向公众披露的信息显示，整场冲突期间，国防部始终未能持续及时、完整地对外公布伤亡情况。”
纽约州州长凯西・霍楚尔对此极为愤慨。近期阵亡的四名士兵之一、纽约本地人安杰尔・兰珀萨德中士，名字从数据库中被移除。
她发表声明称：“不能仅仅因为战争在政治上变得棘手，特朗普政府就随意篡改战争付出的人命代价。兰珀萨德中士为国捐躯，修改网站上的数据，无法抹去她牺牲的事实。”
近期遇袭身亡的另外三名军人分别是：一等兵伊莎贝拉・冈萨雷斯、少尉泰勒・菲汉、迈克尔・伊曼纽尔・斯温顿中士。
这场统计风波发生之前，特朗普本周早些时候似乎刻意淡化伊朗冲突的人员损失。他在社交平台发帖，将伊朗战事美军死亡人数，与阿富汗战争、伊拉克战争、越南战争、朝鲜战争进行对比。上述几场战争持续数年，造成数千美军丧生;而伊朗冲突仅持续五个月，作战形式以导弹、无人机袭击为主，没有大规模地面战。 特朗普帖文中给出的数据是：伊朗战争共有 18 名美军阵亡。
Pentagon lowers count of Iran war dead and wounded, sparking questions and outrage
The Pentagon's public-facing casualty database has not been updated in more than a day after its number of wounded and killed in the Iran war abruptly shifted and continues to undercount the number of the conflict’s casualties, with Defense Department officials attributing the discrepancies to a technical snafu.
The discrepancy raises questions about whether the Pentagon's underlying systems for tracking casualties across military operations may have been impacted by the Trump administration's previous statements that Operation Epic Fury, which was used as the namesake for the Iran war,had endedin May.
The U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran since that date are being “referred to as ‘overseas operations,” a U.S. official told ABC News, a vague description that would be an unconventional label for a war, and subsequently makes it unclear how the war dead and wounded would be counted.
The situation has sparked backlash from lawmakers, who say the administration is obfuscating the casualty count and is trying to skirt the 60-day limit on military action without congressional authorization by rebranding the war.
The ledger of Americans killed and wounded in any conflict has long been viewed as the clearest measure of a war's true cost, and a fundamental test of government transparency.
“Accurate casualty reporting is the one link most Americans have to the true cost of war, especially because it's borne almost entirely by the less than 1% who serve and their families,” Alex Wagner, who served as the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs during the Biden administration, told ABC News.
The U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that started a 60-day negotiating period in June, but earlier this month, Trump declared that the ceasefire was over, precipitating exchanges of fire and more recently nearly two weeks of consecutive nightly strikes.
The public casualty database has previously posted shifting casualty figures since the war began, but the discrepancies reached a crescendo Thursday when the reported death toll fell from 18 to 14, effectively removing the four U.S. service members killed in Jordan and Iraq since daily fighting renewed.
The number of wounded troops listed in the database dropped from 482 on Wednesday to 420 on Thursday.
As of Friday evening, those figures remain uncorrected.
The revised figures also appear to conflict with the Pentagon's own recent public statements. On Monday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said nearly 100 additional U.S. troops had been wounded since July 7, when daily fighting resumed after the collapse of a fragile ceasefire. At no point did the database reflect that increase.
The Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, is the Pentagon's primary public repository for tracking U.S. military casualties from current and past conflicts. The Defense Department maintains the database using casualty data submitted by the military services, and it serves as the federal government's authoritative public record of war dead.
Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said the website was experiencing technical issues.
"The Department of Defense is aware of temporary data disruptions on the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) website," Valdez said in a statement. "These site anomalies are currently being resolved in coordination with the military services."
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on detailed questions about how such a data issue was possible and why the numbers had not been corrected.
It remains unclear whether Pentagon officials consider the resumption of daily fighting to mark the start of a new military campaign.But parsing out individual phases of a war from the broader campaign in this way would be unprecedented.
There are also separate ongoing operations, such as Operation Inherent Resolve, the military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which included a U.S. presence in the region before the Iran war began.
Troops already deployed under that mission may technically fall under a separate operation on paper, including some of the soldiers killed in recent days.
Major U.S. military conflicts have historically evolved through distinct phases, with the scope and intensity of operations changing over time, but those shifts have not resulted in separate casualty categories being treated as separate wars.
In a letter to Congress on May 1, President Donald Trump wrote that Operation Epic Fury, which the administration has used as Iran War’s namesake, had been “terminated.” On May 5, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at a White House briefing that Operation Epic Fury “was over”.
But the resumption of almost daily airstrikes that began on July 6 as the ceasefire with Iran fell apart has led to questions as to whether casualties over the last two weeks are being tracked separately. Such a split would be unprecedented.
On Thursday, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said in a social media post on X “The Pentagon is pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire.”Massie described that possibility as an “absurd ruse” intended to avoid the 60-day deadline imposed by the War Powers Resolution, which calls for congressional authorization of U.S. military conflicts.
Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats on Thursday pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to explain the Pentagon's casualty reporting, demanding a "full and accurate accounting" of every U.S. service member killed and wounded since the Iran war began.
"The American people, Congress, service members, and their families are entitled to a full and accurate accounting of the human costs of war," the letter led by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and signed by the 11 other Democrats on the panel, read. "The information currently available to the public suggests that the department has not consistently provided timely and comprehensive public casualty reporting throughout the conflict."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was "outraged" to see the name of Sgt. Angel Rampersad, one of the four soldiers who was killed in recent days, and a New York native, "removed" from the database.
"The Trump administration does not get to revise the human cost of this war because it has become politically inconvenient," she said in a statement. "Sgt. Rampersad gave her life in service to this country. Changing a website does not rewrite the truth of her sacrifice."
The three other service members who werekilled in recent attackswere Pfc. Isabella Gonzales, 1st Lt. Tyler Feehan and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton.
The accounting issues come after Trump earlier this weekappeared to downplaythe human cost of the Iran conflict, posting on social media a comparison of U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and Korea -- wars that spanned years and claimed thousands of American lives -- alongside the Iran campaign, a five-month conflict fought through missile attacks and drones rather than traditional ground combat.
Trump's post said that 18 American troops had died in the Iran war.
