Pentagon restricts satellite imagery to hide the cost of its Iran War

The Pentagon is forcing private spy satellite firms to hide the true extent of damage caused in the US-Israeli attack on Iran. The US is ensuring compliance by threatening to cut the funds these firms rely on, leaving the US and global public in the dark.

US reporter Ken Klippenstein said military sources told him:

that the level of secrecy surrounding the specifics of the Iran war is unprecedented, with barely any data being released about the level of bombing, the targets being attacked, or the assessed effects.

Adding:

Now the Trump administration is trying to further control what private companies say in a behind-the-scenes effort [that has] not been previously reported.

The US-Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. At the time, Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. The UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has also said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

Pentagon arm-twisting

Klippenstein wrote that as soon as the war was underway on 28 March:

the military promptly issued guidance to satellite operators of what “language and terms to avoid” when describing damage caused by Iran to American bases in the Middle East, according to a copy of the guidance leaked to me.

🚨 US military document leaked to me shows how the Pentagon is working with private companies to manipulate the information you see about the Iran warhttps://t.co/w9G5bz8QZy

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 24, 2026

For example, the guidance insists firms:

“Avoid language that implies battle damage assessment (BDA) or operational conclusions,” one slide produced by U.S. Space Force says. It goes on to warn against using phrases like “Target destroyed,” “Target eliminated,” and “Structure rendered inoperable.”

And the Pentagon is using its role as a big money contract provider to ensure silence:

While the Pentagon “guidance” to the commercial companies is framed as an advisory, the companies comply because their contracting relationships with the government make them afraid to bite the hand that feeds them.

According to Klippenstein over 100 spy satellite firms rely on military contracts. The industry is worth between $6bn and $77bn a year. And it is not just firms who do classified work who are affected:

even those that work on the collection and dissemination of public or “open source” materials that inform the news media, academia, think tanks, and other groups.

A source told Klippenstein:

While there’s a case to be made that they [the companies] should fight it, almost everyone makes the vast majority of their revenue from government contracts in this industry and after Anthropic, nobody is interested in putting up a fight.

Adding:

I think it’s also another layer of trying to make things [about the war] seem less bad than they are.

The reference to Anthropic relates to an ongoing row between the US military and the tech firm Anthropic:

Anthropic has refused to allow its AI model, Claude, to be used for certain missions involving mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. The Pentagon in response has threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company’s cooperation.

As the Canary has reported Claude was used in the 3 January US attack on Venezuela.

Trump’s war on the truth

The US has fought to limit public knowledge about the war since it began bombing Iran. And it has reacted belligerently to factual reportage. For example, the White House launched into a bizarre public rant about Drop Site News on 18 March after the outlet reported on US attempts to restart negotiations with Iran.

A spokesperson said:

The radical, left-wing Drop Site News is clearly carrying water for the Iranian terrorist regime – and reports like these based on pure fiction and citing unnamed anonymous sources should be discarded immediately.

Adding:

Iran feeds this fake news media outlet propaganda and they publish it as fact, which is abhorrent, America Last behavior. Operation Epic Fury will continue unabated until President Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, determines that the goals of Operation Epic Fury, including for Iran to no longer pose a military threat, have been fully realized.

Trump’s war against press freedom and open public information rears its head again. As the US war on Iran stalls and Iran itself continues to resist a return to peace talks, we can expect to see more and more efforts to limit access to facts, stymy reporting and cajole the press, public, and private and public institutions into cooperation.

Featured image via the Canary