The U.S. government is keeping American casualty numbers for the undeclared war on Yemen secret. This is not normal.
The Trump administration is fighting an undeclared war in Yemen, and it has not been shy about publicizing the details of its attacks.
But the administration is unwilling to level with the American people about the costs of war. U.S. Central Command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the White House are keeping the number of U.S. casualties from this ongoing conflict secret. This amounts to a cover-up. Members of Congress are calling for accountability.
“The administration should be transparent about the number of U.S. casualties from the attacks on the Houthis,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif, told The Intercept. “I am also working to hold the administration accountable for its unauthorized strikes in Yemen.”
After two decades of intermittent war in Yemen, the U.S. officially launched Operation Rough Rider in March of this year and has carried out strikes on more than 1,000 targets in Yemen.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has also ramped up conflicts in Iraq, Somalia, and Syria, after running as an anti-war candidate and pitching himself as a “peacemaker.”
The strikes in Yemen are targeting the Iran-backed Houthi government, which began launching attacks on vessels, including U.S. Navy warships, in November 2023 over the war in Gaza. Recent U.S. attacks in response have targeted civilian infrastructure and, according to local reports, killed scores of innocent people.
U.S. troops are also in harm’s way. Earlier this week, a fighter jet fell off the side of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, the Navy said in a statement on Monday. The Truman reportedly made a sharp turn to evade a Houthi attack, which caused the U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter to plunge overboard. One sailor was injured in the chaos, and the $60 million plane was lost to the deep.
“This was a tragic accident, and let’s be clear — neither this service member, nor any of the other service members in Yemen, should have ever been in harm’s way,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash, told The Intercept. “Trump’s strikes in Yemen are unconstitutional, and Congress must assert its congressional war powers before another service member is injured in the line of duty.”
How many other military personnel have been killed or wounded in the broader U.S. campaign against the Houthis, which began under the Biden administration, is being withheld from the American public.
When The Intercept asked the Office of the Secretary of Defense for the number of casualties sustained by U.S. forces in the campaign against the Houthis, the Pentagon balked at providing a number. “We refer you to CENTCOM,” an unnamed official wrote in an email, noting in a follow-up response that “it is their operation.”
When The Intercept did as requested and queried Central Command, referencing the Pentagon’s advice, CENTCOM passed the buck: “On background as a defense official, we refer you to The White House.” Repeated requests to White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers have gone unanswered.
This is not standard operating procedure.
Under the Biden administration, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and CENTCOM provided detailed data on attacks on military bases across the Middle East, including to this reporter. CENTCOM provided the total number of attacks, breakdowns by country, and the total number injured. The Pentagon offered even more granular data, providing individual synopses of more than 150 attacks, including information on deaths and injuries not only to U.S. troops but even civilian contractors working on U.S. bases.
“Withholding basic information from the public makes it harder for the media to shine light on how these officials are violating one of Trump’s most broadly popular campaign promises,” Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy, told The Intercept. “These operatives apparently hope that by waging a war from the air without constitutionally required authorization from Congress, they can keep the public in the dark about the devastating impact of their war.”
The Pentagon acknowledges the danger to U.S. forces posed by Houthi attacks. “They threaten our personnel overseas,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in March, noting that the Houthis were “firing at U.S. military personnel in the region and shooting at our ships … putting American lives at risk.”
The Defense Department not only failed to provide a count of those for whom those risks were realized, but also seemed to suggest that they are not even aware of how many personnel may have been killed or wounded by the Houthis.
When asked if the Pentagon even knew that number, a nameless spokesperson intimated that the information was only known to CENTCOM. “That information is tracked at the combatant command level,” the official replied by email.
Nick Turse is a national security fellow for The Intercept, reporting on national security and foreign policy.
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