Something like that is almost impossible to hide for long. It’s been nearly a week since the first attack. If there were hundreds of casualties, credible leaks would’ve surfaced by now. So far it’s just numbers being thrown around.
I think it’s more likely in the double digits, not the hundreds, and even then probably mostly wounded or critically injured rather than deaths. You might hide wounded cases for a while, but hiding deaths is much harder. That’s just my two cents.
Actually, the bigger the scale of losses, the easier it is to suppress for prolonged periods of time.
US military protocol is to not make any public announcements until up to 72h after the last next of kin has been formally informed. The media is also embargoed from reporting on such losses until after the military has confirmed it has notified all next of kin.
If dozens died in one attack, that’s dozens of families that need to be informed before the media would dare to even hint at it. And if there are MIAs, they can’t report until the MIAs are found and they’re next of kin informed if needed. At best that’s a massive logistical challenge that can take days and weeks at the best of times. If bases are still being actively attacked, the military can drag its feet for a hell of a long time before anyone can prove it. If the White House wants to play dirty tricks, it can easily just claim that some of the next of kin have not yet been informed even if they had been, how’s anyone in the media going to fact check that?
It’s small scale losses that are hard to cover up, because if only one guy died, the whole base will know it was only one guy. So it would be incredibly easy to confirm if the family had been informed. That’s probably why the 6 were announced as those were just too small scale to easily conceal.
