New Delhi, July 20 -- WASHINGTON - Major Sorffly Davius died on March 6 in Kuwait. His service record was processed, his family was notified, and his name entered the military's internal files. It did not, however, enter the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the official federal registry the Pentagon publishes as the authoritative record of American deaths and injuries in the Iran war.

Davius's absence from that count is one of several cases documented in a report published Sunday by The New York Times, which found that the Pentagon has systematically manipulated official casualty statistics in ways that understated the human cost of a conflict the administration has described as a limited and successful operation.

The discrepancy is no...