U.S. service members 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, and Sgt. Angel Rampersad, 28 were killed in an Iranian strike on July 17 at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, a U.S. military base in Jordan, while another service member, Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, was killed during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone on July 19 at Erbil Air Base in Iraq.

Several days after the Pentagon announced their deaths, the DCAS website did not reflect the updated numbers, which garnered attention about the department’s level of transparency. Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez had said there were “temporary data disruptions on the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) website,” and that “These site anomalies are currently being resolved in coordination with the Military Services.”

The two lists still exclude the number of Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards, whose helicopter had to make an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea on July 1, though the other crew members were saved. He was announced lost at sea on July 7. His death is recorded in the DCAS as the only military fatality in July 2026 under the Operation Epic Fury tally, making him the 14th service member killed since the conflict began. But his name is not included in the names of the fallen tab within Operation Epic Fury, which only lists the 13 service members killed before the ceasefire. He is not included in the “Overseas Operations” tally either.

The specific July 7 demarcation coincides with the day President Donald Trump said a new conflict began in a War Powers notification to Congress. The War Powers Act of 1973 requires the president to end military operations within 60 days unless Congress authorizes a continuation. The Trump administration has argued that the president’s announced ceasefire deal, which he unveiled on April 7, stopped the clock on the 60-day time frame from the start of the war.

Alex Plitsas, a former Army veteran and current Atlantic Council expert, told the Washington Examiner: “In this case, it’s a matter of the administration trying to clearly delineate that Epic Fury is over, the new operation started, and that recording it under the previous operation was inappropriate because it would have triggered the War Powers Act.”

Plitsas said that if the department listed these casualties as part of Operation Epic Fury, “It would have made it look like it was extended after 60 days.”

Trump said last week there have been 18 deaths in the “Iran Military Conflict,” choosing not to differentiate between troops killed before and after July 7.

The Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee wrote a letter last week to War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper, and Anthony Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, about the inconsistencies with the DCAS.

“We formally request a comprehensive accounting of the number of service members who have been killed, wounded, or injured in support of the operation,” they wrote. “We are concerned that DCAS is not being maintained at the granular level and calls into serious question the completeness and reliability of the aggregate totals.”

TRUMP’S THREATS TO EXPAND IRAN STRIKES COME AS CONCERNS OVER TRANSPARENCY ESCALATE

The Democrats included a list of several questions about American casualties in the war and the way the Pentagon is characterizing them, and gave the Pentagon until Thursday to respond.

Neither the White House or Pentagon responded to questions about the decision to bifurcate the casualties of the conflict.