February 07 2020
Americans are engaged in an odd argument over injuries suffered by American troops when Iran fired missiles into the US side of an Iraqi base earlier this month.
The irony is that critics of President Trump are saying Americans were injured, while Trump, who used the absence of any injuries to justify taking no retaliatory action, is saying there were no injuries.
In other words, the opponents of taking retaliatory action appear to be providing the justification for taking retaliatory action.
It is very strange dispute indeed.
After the January 8 missile attack, the US staff at the Ain Al-Asad base in western Iraq reported up the chain of command that there had been no deaths or injuries in the Iranian attack.
Nine days later, the Central Command headquarters issued a statement saying that 11 service personnel at the Al-Asad base had been sent to bigger medical facilities abroad to be “assessed” after they were observed with “concussion symptoms” during an automatic screening after the attack.
The announcement didn’t say that anyone had suffered a concussion, but said the 11 needed medical checks that could not be provided in Iraq. A few days later, military officials said six more had been sent abroad for tests.
More than two weeks after the attack, the Pentagon announced that 29 troops were undergoing treatment for brain injuries. Eight were serious enough to be sent to the United States for treatment while 21 others were in Germany undergoing treatment. Another 39 had been assessed and returned to duty in Iraq. The Pentagon said they had also suffered brain injuries, but obviously they were not serious and were not continuing since the troops were back on duty.
As the US numbers rose, Pasdar Brig. Gen. Ramezan Sharif, the spokesman for the group, said the United States was trying to hide all its losses at Ain al-Asad. “We conclude that what the United States announced as brain injuuries is a metaphor for dead US troops,” he said.
Many critics of Trump suggested he lied about the absence of injuries. But the Pentagon pointed out that that it was not told about the service personnel needing a further check until after Trump had given his January 9 White House speech saying no one was injured and therefore there was no need for retaliatory action against Iran.
The first person was flown out of Iraq for further checks January 10 and the next 10 were sent out January 15.
US military rules require that any injuries threatening life, limb or eyesight must be immediately reported up the chain of command. Brain injuries often take time to manifest themselves and be assessed, unlike an injury with blood flowing.
Immediately after announcing it had attacked the base, the Islamic Republic told the Iranian media it had killed 80 Americans. It never said from where it got that number. The Americans still did not know. They were checking all the missile impact points and then all base personnel had to be assembled for a roll call.
Later, when Iran heard no one had been injured, officials changed their story 180 degrees, saying no one had been killed because Iran had not intended to kill anyone and was super accurate in aiming its missiles.
And then a week after the attack, on January 16, Brig. Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s missile forces, said “tens” of US troops had been killed and injured with the wounded taken to Israel, Jordan and Baghdad. (Actually, those evacuated for concussion checks went to Kuwait and Germany.)
The interim claim that no one was injured because Iran had not intended to hit anyone made no sense. One of the missiles had hit a sleeping quarters. If one is not trying to kill anyone, one would not normally aim at a sleeping quarters in the middle of the night.
On the other hand, the Iraqi prime minister’s office said he had been warned by Iran six hours before the attack and had immediately informed the Americans. That gave the US troops lots of time to get ready. Some thought Iran told Baghdad early so that the prime minister could give the troops time to hunker down.
Most troops were in bunkers that had been built under Saddam Hussein to protect Iraqi troops from a possible attack by—guess who—Iran. A handful of US troops were kept in watchtowers around the perimeter of the base because the US suspected Iran might dispatch some Iraqi militiamen to attack on the ground after the missiles hit.
Some of the Iranian missiles hit just outside bunkers and those inside saw the doors buckle. The troops in those locales presumably suffered the brain injuries.
Some people are trying to make Americans believe there were a lot of casualties at the base. A forged letter from the Pentagon to Rep. Bennie Thompson says it was being sent to answer Thompson’s questions and asserts that 139 troops were killed and another 146 were injured. The Pentagon says the letter is a fake and Thompson says he never sent the Pentagon a request and never received any letter about casualties.
Mike Pregent, a former intelligence officer now at the Hudson Institute, told the Washington Examiner he suspects the Pasdaran are behind the forgery. He said it first surfaced on social media linked to the Pasdaran. He thinks it is an attempt to appease hardliners in Iran who aren’t happy that the Pasdaran couldn’t kill anyone with their missiles.
There has also been considerable argument over the damage done by the missiles.
The Pentagon said 16 missiles were fired from Iran. It said 11 hit Ain Al-Asad, one hit an empty area in Iraqi Kurdistan near Erbil between the base used there by US troops and the US consulate, while four missiles fell short of Al-Asad.
The four missiles falling short makes for a 25 percent failure rate, the same as the failure rate when Iran fired missiles at Saudi Arabian oil installations in September. That is a very large failure rate, but Iran appears to accept that and fired volleys of missiles.
The Central Command said the 11 missiles that hit Al-Asad all hit within the US section of the base, showing a serious level of accuracy. It said some empty buildings were hit along with several “tents,” which is what the military calls the huge canvas structures under which helicopters are parked when they are being worked on. But it said most tents were empty and only a single Blackhawk helicopter was destroyed. Some other missiles landed in the middle of runways or taxiways, the Pentagon said.
The Pentagon allowed reporters to visit the base and film the target sites. Some critics argued that the damage was greater than the Pentagon alleged based on those photos, but the visiting reporters didn’t claim that the damage was severe, especially given that they could see hundreds of buildings untouched on the base.
There is proof that Iran has succeeded in building accuracy into at least some of its missiles. Last year, Iran fired a missile at a base used by the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran inside Iraqi Kurdistan. That missile hit the very room in which the KDPI leadership was then holding a meeting.
