Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, in a post on X called the Washington Post report about the killing of 22 soldiers in the Iran war “disgusting” and “fake” and wrote: “This is a complete lie. Shame on the Washington Post; they are worse than Iran’s government media.”

Earlier on Friday, the Washington Post, citing six U.S. officials informed of the figures in the Pentagon’s internal data, reported that at least 22 American soldiers have been killed in the Iran war—four more than the figure in the public Pentagon database.