Iraqi TV network: Iranian airstrikes on al-Assad airbase resulted in hundreds of US casualties and extensive damage - UPDATE: 'Letter is fake'

araq.tv
Wed, 15 Jan 2020 19:00 UTC

US soldiers survey the damage following the Iranian airstrikes on their base in Ain al-Assad, western Iraq last week

According to a document circulating in cyberspace, James Hogan (a Pentagon official), during his correspondence with Bennie Thompson (Chairman of the US House Committee on Homeland Security), officially announced the damage to the Ain al-Assad air base. The statistics published in his letter show that the United States, contrary to what the media has reported, suffered heavy losses. The information provided in the document is as follows:

• 285 casualties (139 deaths plus 146 injuries)
• Extensive damage to 15 helicopters, including 1 Blackhawk, two cargo aircraft and 3 MQ-1 Predator drones
• Extensive damage to the Base Command Center, 3 hangars, 3 barracks, and 10 military tents.
• Relative damage to the Air Traffic Control Tower and the base's runway

According to James Hogan, based on preliminary estimates, activities at this base have experienced a major breakdown, and may have to stop entirely for at least three weeks.

Comment: We're trying to verify whether this letter is indeed a Pentagon response to a FOIA request by the congressman. Format-wise, it does look like previously-published DoD FOIA letters.

The claimed sender is indeed the Chief of DoD FOIA Policy, and the claimed recipient is indeed the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the US House of Representatives.

We encourage readers to contact Congressman Thompson in order to verify that this is in fact a letter he received from DoD. Here is his Twitter account, his Facebook page, and his contact details on his website.

In the meantime, reports have begun to emerge in US media that soldiers were 'thrown through windows' and 'suffered concussions' - but for now, officially, those don't count as 'injuries'...

UPDATE 23:30 CET

Congressman Thompson has responded to inquiries about this letter, saying that he neither wrote the DoD, nor received anything from them, on this topic: