2026-09-02T23:26:00-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
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更新于：2026年9月2日 / 美国东部时间晚上11:29 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿讯——8月的一封空军邮件被哥伦比亚广播公司新闻获取，邮件显示五角大楼正在指示人员停止将美国在伊朗进行的 ongoing 军事行动称为“史诗之怒行动”——此时距特朗普政府宣布该行动结束已过去三个月。
针对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻的提问，五角大楼周三表示，“史诗之怒行动”正式于5月5日结束。同日，国务卿马可·卢比奥在白宫对记者称：“该行动已经结束。史诗之怒——总统已通知国会——我们已完成该阶段任务。我们现在转向‘自由计划’。”四天前，特朗普先生曾告知国会，“敌对行动”已“终止”。
此前数月，五角大楼和美国中央司令部一直拒绝披露该行动的正式结束日期。自“史诗之怒行动”正式结束以来，美伊双方仍断断续续交火，不过其间曾有长时间停火，包括4月初开始的停火协议期间。
但这一日期也引发了疑问：五角大楼该如何归类在“史诗之怒行动”正式结束后阵亡和受伤的军人，或是为何针对伊朗的美国 ongoing 军事行动的命名指导，在5月结束日期过去数月后才发布。
上月，美国空军高级将领飞往佛罗里达州奥兰多参加2026年空军军士协会会议时，高级公共事务官员接到指示，告知军方领导人不得使用“史诗之怒行动”这一称呼。他们被告知改用更宽泛的措辞来指代此次冲突：“美国中央司令部责任区的海外行动”。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻获取的一封标注日期为8月7日的指导邮件显示了这一要求。
这封空军邮件显示，该指导由国防部长皮特·赫格斯瑟的中央公共事务办公室发布，该办公室由五角大楼首席发言人肖恩·帕内尔领导。邮件重申，美国中央司令部必须批准所有公开披露的有关伊朗冲突的信息。
不愿具名的美军官员对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻表示，该指导并非仅针对美国空军，而是在整个国防部范围内传播。这些官员因未获公开发言授权而要求匿名，他们表示该指导也于8月和9月在各自军种内部传达。
2026年8月7日关于“史诗之怒行动”术语的邮件
在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻采访时，一名五角大楼官员表示：“在4月停火后，政府声明‘史诗之怒行动’已于5月5日结束。后续行动包括航行自由行动以及打击行动，以进一步削弱伊斯兰革命卫队对商业航运、海湾国家和美军构成的威胁。”
美军历来会公布命名军事行动的开始和结束日期，为某一任务结束、另一任务启动留下公开记录。例如，阿富汗的“持久自由行动”始于2001年10月7日，于2014年12月31日结束，之后转为“自由哨兵行动”。
五角大楼利用这些日期来划定战役阶段和确定军事奖励的资格，但同时也为国会、军人和公众提供了清晰的方式，以追踪美国海外军事行动的范围和持续时间。
卢比奥似乎是特朗普政府中唯一公开明确表示“史诗之怒行动”正式结束的官员。不过他并未说明该行动的结束日期是5月5日。
在卢比奥发表声明的同一天，赫格斯瑟也在五角大楼单独向记者通报情况，将“史诗之怒行动”与新的“自由计划”区分开来。他将“自由计划”描述为一项防御性海上任务，旨在保护霍尔木兹海峡的商业航运。他以过去时态提及“史诗之怒行动”，但并未明确表示该行动已经结束。在4月美伊达成临时停火协议后的一次五角大楼新闻发布会上，赫格斯瑟称“史诗之怒行动”取得了“决定性军事胜利”。
5月5日也是五角大楼最后一次向记者通报对伊战争的日期。特朗普先生于5月5日宣布，“自由计划”将“短暂暂停”，以便美伊双方进行谈判。目前该计划的状态尚不明确。
5月5日并未标志着与伊朗更广泛冲突的结束。美军仍在开展与六个月前美以袭击伊朗后爆发的冲突相关的任务。
7月7日，特朗普总统正式通知国会，针对伊朗的“军事行动”已重新启动，这份致参议院临时议长、爱荷华州共和党参议员查克·格拉斯利的消息中提及了此事。大约在同一时间，美伊谈判破裂，特朗普先生宣布4月的停火协议“结束”。
在4月停火协议破裂后，伊朗军队继续袭击美军和商业船只。美国也定期对伊朗发动打击，包括本周两轮不同的空袭，引发了伊朗的反击。
五角大楼承认5月5日的结束日期，这引发了一个疑问：为何其公共事务办公室在8月初明确指示高级领导人在谈论针对伊朗的 ongoing 军事行动时，不要使用“史诗之怒行动”这一旗号，而军方现在称该行动已于数月前结束。五角大楼未就该指导发布的原因置评。
此外，5月5日这一日期的意义还超出了命名行动的范畴，为了解军方如何统计自对伊战争爆发以来阵亡和受伤的美军人员提供了一个基准。
7月，美国国防部负责向公众披露军事冲突中阵亡和受伤人员的网站最初将7月在中东阵亡的四名军人归类为“史诗之怒行动”中阵亡的作战人员——此时距该行动正式结束已过去两个月。
7月18日，1中尉泰勒·詹姆斯·费汉、参谋军士安吉尔·兰佩尔萨德和列兵伊莎贝拉·冈萨雷斯在约旦穆瓦法克·萨尔蒂空军基地的睡梦中被伊朗导弹击中身亡。第四名军人、参谋军士迈克尔·伊曼纽尔·斯温顿于7月19日在伊拉克的一起单独事件中身亡，当时正处于对伊朗攻击无人机的受控引爆过程中。
几天之内，这四人在国防部网站上被移至一个新类别“海外行动”，该类别于7月25日的周末创建。此举从技术上将“史诗之怒行动”敌对行动中的阵亡人数从18人减少至14人。
当这四名阵亡军人被转移到海外行动类别时，包括哥伦比亚广播公司新闻在内的多家新闻机构都询问了原因。五角大楼首席发言人肖恩·帕内尔在7月23日将该错误归咎于“临时数据中断”，并表示“网站异常”正在解决中。五角大楼在7月也拒绝透露“史诗之怒行动”何时结束。
在为本次报道联系时，一名五角大楼官员表示：“由于‘史诗之怒行动’已经结束，国防部将伤亡归类为中央司令部责任区的海外行动。”
截至发稿时，五角大楼的“国防伤亡分析系统”目前显示，5月有五名军人受伤，7月有一名军人在“史诗之怒行动”中阵亡。目前尚不清楚为何这些军人被归类在五角大楼称已于5月结束的行动之下，也不清楚为何“史诗之怒行动”未列出结束日期。
Military personnel told last month to stop calling Iran conflict “Operation Epic Fury”
2026-09-02T23:26:00-0400 / CBS News
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Updated on: September 2, 2026 / 11:29 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington — An Air Force email from August and obtained by CBS News shows the Pentagon was instructing personnel to stop referring to ongoing U.S. military operations in Iran as “Operation Epic Fury” — three months after the Trump administration declared it had ended.
In response to questions from CBS News, the Pentagon said Wednesday that Operation Epic Fury officially ended May 5, the same day Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared to reporters at the White House: “The operation is over. Epic Fury is — the president notified Congress — we’re done with that stage of it. We’re now on to this Project Freedom.” Four days earlier, Mr. Trump told Congress the “hostilities” had “terminated.”
Previously, the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command had declined to disclose the operation’s formal end date for months. The U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange on-and-off fire since Operation Epic Fury’s official end date, though there have been lengthy pauses in fighting, including during a ceasefire that began in early April.
But the date also raises questions about how the Pentagon categorizes service members who were killed and wounded after “Operation Epic Fury” formally ended, or why guidance over what to call ongoing U.S. military operations against Iran came months after the May end date.
Last month, as senior U.S. Air Force leaders flew to Orlando, Florida, to attend the 2026 Air Force Sergeants Association, high-level public affairs officers were instructed to inform military leaders not to use “Operation Epic Fury.” They were told to instead use broader language to refer to the conflict: “overseas operations in the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility,” according to an email containing the guidance that was obtained by CBS News and dated Aug. 7.
The Air Force email shows that the guidance was issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s central public affairs office led by Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman. It reiterated that U.S. Central Command had to approve information publicly released about the Iran conflict.
U.S. military officials who spoke to CBS News under condition of anonymity said the guidance was not exclusive to the U.S. Air Force and was disseminated across the entire Defense Department. Military officials, who spoke to CBS News under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the guidance was also disseminated within their services in August and September.
An Aug. 7, 2026, email on the term “Operation Epic Fury.”
Contacted by CBS News, a Defense Department official said: “Following the April ceasefire, the administration stated Operation Epic Fury had concluded on May 5. Subsequent activities have included Freedom of Navigation operations and strikes to further diminish threats posed by the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to commercial shipping, Gulf countries, and American forces.”
The U.S. military has historically published start and end dates for named military operations, creating a public record of when one mission ends and another begins. Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, for example, began Oct. 7, 2001, and ended on Dec. 31, 2014, before moving into Operation Freedom’s Sentinel
The Pentagon used those dates to establish campaign phases and eligibility for military awards, but they also provide Congress, service members and the public with a clear way to track the scope and duration of American military involvement in operations abroad.
Rubio appears to be the only Trump administration official to publicly and explicitly say that Operation Epic Fury had officially concluded. He did not, however, say that the date it ended was May 5.
On the same day as Rubio’s statement, Hegseth also separately briefed reporters at the Pentagon, differentiating Epic Fury from the new Project Freedom, which he described as a defensive maritime mission to protect commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. He referred to Epic Fury in the past tense but did not explicitly state that the operation had ended. In a Pentagon press briefing a month earlier in April, after the U.S. and Iran entered into a temporary ceasefire, Hegseth said Epic Fury had achieved a “decisive military victory.”
May 5 was also the last time the Pentagon briefed the press on the war with Iran. Mr. Trump announced on May 5 that Project Freedom would be put on hold for a “short period of time” so the U.S. and Iran could negotiate. Its current status is not clear.
The May 5 date did not mark the end of the broader conflict with Iran. American forces continue to conduct missions tied to the conflict that began six months ago when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.
President Trump formally notified Congress that “military action” against Iran had restarted on July 7, in a message addressed to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Senate’s president pro tempore. At around that time, talks between the U.S. and Iran collapsed, and Mr. Trump declared the April ceasefire “over.”
Iranian forces have continued attacks on U.S. troops and commercial vessels following the collapse of the April ceasefire. The U.S. has also periodically struck Iran, including in two different rounds of strikes this week that drew Iranian counterattacks.
The Pentagon’s acknowledgment of the May 5 date raises questions about why its public affairs office found it necessary in early August to explicitly instruct senior leaders not to use the Operation Epic Fury banner when talking about ongoing military operations against Iran, an operation the military now says had ended months earlier. The Pentagon did not comment on why the guidance was sent out.
Separately, the significance of the May 5 date also extends beyond the named operation, providing a benchmark for understanding how the military has counted the Americans killed and wounded in the fighting since the war with Iran started.
In July, the Defense Department website that informs the public about the dead and wounded in military conflicts originally categorized four service members who died in July in the Mideast as being killed in action during Operation Epic Fury — two months after it had officially ended.
On July 18, 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, Staff Sgt. Angel Rampersad and Pfc. Isabella Gonzales were killed when an Iranian missile hit their sleeping barracks at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. The fourth service member, Staff Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, was killed in a separate incident on July 19, in Iraq, during a controlled detonation of an Iranian attack drone.
Within a few days, the four were moved on the Defense Department’s website into a new category, “overseas operations,” which was created over the weekend of July 25. The move technically decreased the number killed in Epic Fury hostilities from 18 to 14.
When the four deceased service members were moved to the overseas operations category, multiple news outlets, including CBS News, requested to know why. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on July 23 chalked up the errors to a “temporary data disruption” and said the “site anomalies” were being resolved. The Pentagon also declined to say in July when Epic Fury had ended.
Contacted for this story, a Pentagon official said: “Since Operation Epic Fury has concluded, the Department classifies casualties as overseas operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.”
As of publication, the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System currently shows five service members were wounded in June, and one was killed in July in Operation Epic Fury. It’s not clear why these service members are categorized under the operation that the Pentagon says ended in May or why no end date for Epic Fury is listed.