Pentagon secrecy deepens as Iran war drags on

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to The Classifieds. Read on to learn about the week’s top secrecy news.

Pentagon deflates Iran war casualties

In what appears to be its latest effort to obfuscate the human costs of the ongoing Iran war, the Pentagon has stopped adding casualties that occurred on or after July 7, 2026, to its “Operation Epic Fury” casualty database — adding them instead to a new database ambiguously titled “Overseas Operations.”

The numbers reported in the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System came under scrutiny in July when four service member deaths were abruptly removed from the Epic Fury tally. Despite initially attributing the removal to “site errors,” the Pentagon didn’t revise the total. Instead, it launched an entirely new dataset, ostensibly because Operation Epic Fury had officially concluded — despite a resumption in hostilities.

The real motivation for launching a new database may have less to do with administrative clarity and more to do with bypassing the War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional authorization for troops to remain in a combat zone after 60 days, unless Congress formally declares war — something lawmakers have repeatedly split over regarding Iran.

This cynical numbers game has nothing to do with the war being over. All bifurcating the data does is force the public to hunt down and manually add numbers across multiple databases to get an accurate total. As I told The Hill, the middle of a war is the worst time for the Pentagon to lower its standards for accountability. The American public — and military families — have a fundamental right to know the true cost of the conflict.

If we’re having this much trouble getting a clear answer on how many Americans have been killed or wounded in Iran, finding out how many Iranian civilians have died will be even harder. That’s because earlier this year, the Department of Defense effectively terminated its congressionally mandated program to prevent and respond to civilian deaths resulting from U.S. military action.

Iran isn’t the only area where the DOD is hiding critical information. At the same time it’s playing shell games with war casualties, the Pentagon continues to hide its legal rationale for the ongoing (and ineffective) strikes on alleged drug boats, restrict press access, persecute whistleblowers, and attempt to shield huge swaths of unclassified records from the Freedom of Information Act and public scrutiny.

Biden’s FOIA loss should pave the way for release of Jack Smith report

In denying former President Joe Biden’s motion to block the FOIA release of his audio recordings with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has established a key precedent regarding the disclosure of special counsel files — including the Jack Smith report.

For background, the interview tapes were obtained by Special Counsel Robert Hur as part of his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The Heritage Foundation then filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department for the release of the tapes, and the appeals court agreed, placing the public interest in a high-profile investigation above executive privacy claims.

This ruling directly impacts an ongoing effort by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University to obtain Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report into President Donald Trump’s illegal hoarding of classified documents at the end of his first term. While Judge Aileen Cannon permanently enjoined that report’s release, the Knight Institute is citing the Hur precedent in its appeal.

If public interest requires transparency for Hur’s recordings of Biden, that exact same standard must apply to Smith’s findings on Trump.

Have a FOIA story? Apply for FPF’s $25,000 Penlight Prize

Are you a journalist who published a public-records-based story without a paywall on or after Sept. 1, 2025? If so, consider applying for FPF’s inaugural $25,000 Penlight Prize! Submissions will be accepted until Sept. 1, 2026. Learn more at penlightprize.org.

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper

Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation