The Intercept

The Intercept is a US-based investigative journalism outlet founded in 2014 by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill under First Look Media, initially established to report on documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It built its reputation on adversarial national security journalism, publishing classified and leaked material on surveillance, drone programmes, and intelligence operations. Though it has faced internal controversies, including Greenwald's departure in 2020 over editorial disputes, it remains a significant outlet for government accountability reporting across multiple conflicts, not solely the 2026 Iran war.

In the context of the 2026 Iran-Israel war, The Intercept published reporting that US Pentagon casualty data sent to Congress was three days out of date and excluded the Prince Sultan Air Base attack, citing a gap between the official CENTCOM figure of 303 wounded and the outlet's Pentagon-sourced figure of 520 or more . The Pentagon subsequently revised its official wounded count upward to 365, still well short of The Intercept's figure, and neither figure included every subsequent incident.

The casualty undercount story is consistent with The Intercept's editorial pattern of using Pentagon and intelligence community sources to challenge official government narratives on war costs. It created political pressure at a sensitive moment given the War Powers Resolution's 60-day clock, and the underlying transparency dispute remains unresolved as fighting resumed in July after the mid-June Ceasefire broke down, with fresh US casualties reported in Iraq and Jordan.