Trump: US troop accidents from Iran’s assault “not very critical”

President Donald Trump is minimizing the accidents sustained by US troops attacked by Iran earlier this month, describing them as simply “headaches.”

“I’ve seen what Iran has completed with roadside bombs to our troops. I’ve seen individuals with no legs and no arms. I’ve seen those who have been horribly, horribly injured,” Trump mentioned Wednesday throughout his journey to the World Financial Discussion board at Davos, Switzerland. “I don’t contemplate them very critical accidents relative to different accidents that I’ve seen.”

Trump’s feedback struck many as callous, provided that concussions and potential traumatic mind accidents, which greater than 11 military members are being evaluated for, can have critical long-term penalties.

However there’s one other learn of Trump’s feedback: It may very nicely be that the president is solely attempting to deescalate the nonetheless sky-high tensions with Iran.

After Tehran fired 16 missiles at two US army websites in Iraq earlier this month, the Trump administration repeatedly mentioned there have been no casualties. Trump, throughout a January eight tackle on the White Home, reiterated that message by saying “all of our soldiers are safe.”

Then final week, a Pentagon spokesperson admitted 11 military members sustained accidents within the Iran strikes, saying in an announcement that the troops have been “handled for concussion signs from the blast and are nonetheless being assessed” in Germany and Kuwait.

After which on Tuesday — virtually two weeks after Trump and different officers mentioned nobody was damage — one other Defense Department spokesperson mentioned that “further service members have been recognized as having potential accidents” and are beneath analysis in Germany, too, although the precise variety of troops or nature of the accidents is unclear.

Whereas Iran didn’t kill a single US army member — so far as we all know — it’s clear the human toll is way larger than the administration initially let on. In fact, it’s potential that officers didn’t discover the accidents till nicely after the Iran assault, because the first injuries to be identified are usually those involving visible physical wounds.

Trump, throughout his journey on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, was requested about his preliminary feedback downplaying the casualty figures.

In his view, the concussions US troops are recovering from now aren’t that huge a deal.

“I heard that that they had complications, and a few different issues,” he responded. “However I might say — and I can report — it’s not very critical,”

He went on to say that he solely realized concerning the accidents days after his White Home remarks, including that reporters ought to direct any further inquiries to the Pentagon.

There’s no query that the president shouldn’t converse so dismissively about US troops having concussions. Because the Rand Company’s veterans skilled Phillip Carter has tweeted, concussions are one of many “signature” accidents of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Division of Veterans Affairs is spending billions of dollars to grasp the results of traumatic mind accidents, together with their hyperlinks to dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

In different phrases, concussions are very critical and way more than simply “complications.” It’s absolutely demoralizing to the hundreds of thousands of service members who’ve had comparable accidents to listen to the president converse this manner.

However there’s an opportunity Trump minimized the accidents for a particular purpose: to cease tensions with Iran from escalating uncontrolled.

Admitting critical US accidents would possibly’ve led to a much bigger struggle with Iran

Trump’s clear purple line with Iran was that its army or regional proxies couldn’t kill an American. In the event that they did, the US would reply forcefully.

He adopted via on that purple line in late December after a Tehran-backed proxy militia killed a US contractor in Iraq, prompting the president to strike 5 of the group’s websites, leaving 25 members lifeless and one other 50 injured.

And after members of that very same militia — Kata’ib Hezbollah — surrounded and breached the US Embassy in Baghdad on New 12 months’s Eve, setting the entrance reception room ablaze, Trump opted to kill prime Iranian army chief Qassem Soleimani on January 2.

Six days later, Iran responded with its personal counterstrike, launching 16 missiles complete on the al-Asad airbase and one other web site in Iraq’s north.

The possibility for full-blown war with Iran would have risen had Iran’s weapons killed an American service member. The president would absolutely have felt strain to reply from a few of his key aides, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he might need ordered a bigger strike inside Iran.

At that time, there could be little question of Iranian retaliation — and a cycle of violence would solely worsen.

The truth that a minimum of 11 army members might have sustained concussions or worse doesn’t appear to have crossed the president’s purple line. But it surely’d be arduous for Trump to not hit again at Iran in a considerable method for significantly injuring so many American service members. It’s subsequently potential that Trump doesn’t need to elevate the state of affairs, as in any other case he’d face immense strain from inside and out of doors his administration to do one thing about it.

Many would possibly want Trump would discover a higher technique to keep away from such a lure. But when he did so in service of avoiding a much bigger struggle with Iran, then his seemingly heartless feedback might have tried to serve a larger objective.