Why is the Pentagon being so secretive about American casualties in Iraq?

The first report of an American soldier wounded in combat against ISIS terrorists came in March of this year. Since then, publicly available data and interviews with Pentagon leaders suggest that a total of six American casualties have occurred in the fight against ISIS: five troops wounded in action and one, Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler of Oklahoma, killed during a raid.

But while a few details of the circumstances surrounding Wheeler's death have been released, the Pentagon has been remarkably quiet about the other five casualties. U.S. Central Command has refused to release information as basic as the names of the wounded or how they were injured, The Daily Beast reports.

Much of this silence may be connected to the Obama administration's unwillingness to call the conflict with ISIS a war, despite Defense Secretary Ashton Carter's Tuesday announcement that the U.S. will begin "direct action on the ground" against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In June 2014, President Obama promised that "American combat troops are not going to be fighting in Iraq again."

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