🔸 Pete Hegseth, U.S. Defense Secretary, rejected a Washington Post report about the number of American servicemembers killed in the Iran war being higher than the official figures from the Pentagon, calling it “disgusting and fake” and “a full-fledged lie.”

🔸 Hegseth wrote on the X network on Saturday, 28 Shahrivar: “Shame on the Washington Post; they’re worse than Iran’s state media.”

🔸 On Friday, 27 Shahrivar, the Washington Post wrote that the number of American servicemembers killed in the Iran war “was higher than what the Pentagon has announced.”

🔸 The newspaper, citing “six U.S. officials familiar with the internal mechanism at the U.S. Department of War for calculating casualties,” wrote that five of them—who, due to the sensitivity of the matter, asked that their names not be disclosed—confirmed that the number of those killed was at least 22.

🔸 The Pentagon had previously announced the casualties of U.S. servicemembers in this war as 18.