Trump remark about US troop injuries in Iraq 'obviously not accurate': Esper

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that former President Trump's recent remarks downplaying U.S. troop brain injuries in Iraq are “obviously not accurate."

“Yeah, that's, that's obviously not accurate,” he responded when asked by CNN's Kaitlan Collins if the former defense official saw those brain injuries as just “headaches.” 

Esper, who served in the Trump administration, pointed to a number of soldiers who self-reported “very serious” damages. 

“You know, we talked about this afterward,” he continued. “I wrote about this in my memoir. We went through that entire night trying to get an assessment of what the damage was done to our ... the harm done to our troops.” 

His comments came shortly after Trump, during a campaign stop in Milwaukee, dismissed injuries sustained by U.S. troops during a 2020 Iranian missile strike on an Iraqi base that left dozens with traumatic brain injuries. He was responding to a reporter who asked if his administration should have responded more strongly.

Trump, who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term in office, argued during the rally that there was “nobody ever tougher on Iran” than he was.

“So first of all, injured. What does injured mean? Injured means — you mean because they had a headache? Because the bombs never hit the fort,” the former president replied.

“And if you were a truthful reporter, which you’re not, you would tell the following: None of those very accurate missiles hit our fort,” he added. “They all hit outside, and there was nobody hurt other than the sound was loud, and some people said that hurt, and I accept that.”

More than 100 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries following the strike, defense officials said at the time. The incident was initiated as payback for Trump’s order to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. 

Esper said on CNN that “troops defended extraordinarily well, but when we got up the next morning, we had no injuries, traditionally, as you would know, but over time, we came to learn, as troops did self-reporting, and really came to reported some of their symptoms that we had, I think dozens, over 100 cases reported, and several were very serious, traumatic brain injuries.” 

The former Department of Defense chief, who said in late March that he would not be voting for Trump in the 2024 election, recalled visiting injured service members when they were recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. 

“And it took some time to discover these again, but eventually over 100 troops reported injuries [and] some of them were very serious,” Esper, who joined CNN as a contributor in February, said.

“I remember visiting a soldier at Walter Reed Hospital, a couple months later and talking about the attack and what he experienced, and so it's quite a traumatic night," he added.