On Friday, the Pentagon announced that 34 American troops received traumatic brain injuries from an Iranian missile strike that took place earlier this month on an Iraqi air base.
Half of those troops have returned to their military duties, while the other half are still under medical observation or treatment, according to the chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman.
Initially, President Donald Trump said he was informed that no troops were injured during the January 8 strike. The military claimed symptoms were not immediately reported following the strike. In some cases, the symptoms became known days later.
After the first reports came out that some soldiers were injured, Trump referred to the injuries as “headaches” and said the cases were not as serious as injuries where soldiers lost limbs.
Hoffman disclosed that 34 soldiers had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This was the first update on the number of soldiers injured during Iran’s missile attack on Ain al-Asad air base since the Pentagon announced on January 17 that 11 service members had been flown out of Iraq with concussion-like symptoms.
During the attack on Ain al-Asad, no one was killed. It was a retaliatory strike against the U.S. for its drone missile attack that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani on January 3 at Baghdad International Airport.
Trump has made it clear on multiple occasions that no Americans were harmed during these missile strikes. Because of this outcome, Trump stated that he had no intention of retaliating even further and risking an all-out war with Iran.
Trump gave credit to an early warning system “that worked very well” for the minimal damage that the U.S. took during this missile attack.
However, elites may be trying to play up the damage from this attack as a way to coax Trump into more escalatory actions in the near future.
Trump should pay them no heed and continue with his America First foreign policy of restraint.
