U.S. Army soldiers in a mock village during the Combined Resolve “Gray Wolves” exercise at the U.S. Army Hohenfels Training Range in Hohenfels, Germany, Thursday, April 30, 2026.
Alex Kraus | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Pentagon lowered the official death toll from the Iran war from 18 to 14 in a single day after the Trump administration removed four service members who died this month from the tally, according to the Pentagon’s Casualty Analysis System.
Seven of the 14 total fatalities were classified as “hostile,” according to the Department of Defense’s casualty database. The New York Times earlier reported the change in numbers.
Three military officials told the Times that the four service members killed over the weekend – three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq – were removed from the list because they died after President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire in April. All of the deaths listed Thursday on the website as updated as of Wednesday occurred in March.
The Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
According to the Times, acting Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez said the change was due to a “temporary data outage” on the department’s casualty website, which would be fixed soon.
The revisions were made amid scrutiny of the government’s handling of casualty data as the Middle East conflict continues to drag on.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Monday that President Trump has not shared Iran war casualty statistics with Congress and that there has been “no transparency from the president or the Department of Defense about the full scope of the equipment loss and casualty statistics.”
The Pentagon has made little announcements about U.S. military strategy since the ceasefire collapsed and has not held any major briefings on the war since early May.
Trump himself uses a higher number for the death toll. “We had a very sad day yesterday. We went to Dover and we lost four great American patriots. That’s 18 people…one is too many, but it’s still 18 people,” he said at Thursday’s event.
