“The reason was made up,” Murphy said in an interview with CNN, rejecting officials’ explanation that security concerns prevented his visit.
The senator pointed out that he had previously visited US military positions in Iraq and Afghanistan while fighting was underway, challenging the Pentagon’s justification for denying him access during the war on Iran.
“This was not a question of safety. This is a question of cover-up,” Murphy said.
He added that Defense Department officials in the region had also refused to brief him at the US embassy, preventing him from obtaining a direct account of the war’s impact from military leadership.
Despite the Pentagon’s restrictions, the State Department allowed Murphy to inspect damage at the US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which he described as “extensive”.
“The attack on the US embassy happened at night. Had it happened during the day, there would have been lots of Americans killed,” he said.
Murphy has accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon of deliberately obstructing congressional oversight to prevent lawmakers and the American public from seeing the consequences of the war firsthand.
“This trip confirmed for me that there is an active, unprecedented, unconstitutional effort underway to hide the costs of this war and the implications of this war from Congress and the American people,” Murphy said, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, media investigations have raised further questions about the Pentagon’s disclosure of American military casualties and the extent of damage inflicted during the war.
A September 18 investigation by The Washington Post, citing US officials familiar with internal Defense Department casualty records, found that at least 22 American service members had been killed by Iranian attacks, four more than the 18 listed in the Pentagon’s public database at the time.
One of the officials put the death toll at 23, while the Pentagon declined to address the discrepancy.
The same report said the Pentagon’s public database listed more than 820 service members wounded in action and cited a US Central Command estimate that the war had cost approximately $43.6 billion through early September, excluding damage to American military bases.