Donald Trump dismisses injuries of US military troops, proves (again) there is no bottom
(CNN)Before leaving the internal gathering at Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump held a hastily scheduled press conference. In it, he was asked about the clear discrepancy between his initial claim that no Americans had been harmed in Iran's retaliatory strikes against a US base in Iraq and reports of 11 military personnel diagnosed with concussions and an unnamed number of others also being treated in the wake of the attack.
"No, I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things, but I would say, and I can report, it's not very serious," Trump said dismissively. When pressed about the potential for traumatic brain injury among those concussed, Trump added: "They told me about it numerous days later, you'd have to ask Department of Defense. I don't consider it very serious relative to other injuries that I've seen. I've seen what Iran has done with their roadside bombs to our troops. I've seen people with no legs and with no arms. I've seen people that were horribly, horribly injured in that area, that war. No, I do not consider that to be bad injuries, no."
Which, well, yeah.
Let's start with what we know about the injured soldiers. We know that the 11 soldiers initially injured were evacuated from the base in Iraq -- eight to Germany and three more to Kuwait. In addition, the Pentagon announced Tuesday that an unspecified number of other troops had been injured in the attack and evacuated to Germany.
"As medical treatment and evaluations in theater continue, additional service members have been identified as having potential injuries," said CENTCOM spokesman Bill Urban. "These service members -- out of an abundance of caution -- have been transported to Landstuhl, Germany, for further evaluations and necessary treatment on an outpatient basis. Given the nature of injuries already noted, it is possible additional injuries may be identified in the future."
Given that the patients are still being evaluated, it's hard to imagine that Trump has deep insight into their conditions -- or prognosis. As CNN's Barbara Starr notes, the military has made a significant push in recent years to identify and treat traumatic brain injury associated with combat roles, making Trump's downplaying of the injuries suffered by the troops all the more problematic.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/politics/donald-trump-iran-attack-headaches/index.html
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