Defense Secretary Mark Esper was only made aware of possible brain trauma suffered by US troops during a Jan. 8 Iranian ballistic missile attack on al-Asad air base in Iraq a full 24 hours after injured service members were evacuated, the Pentagon’s top spokesman said today.

Esper was informed of the possible injuries when vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Hyten, interrupted a meeting to inform him, chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said. The 11 US troops, eight of whom were evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and the rest to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, are expected to return to Iraq after follow-on screening.

“He was informed that the [US Central Command] commander had sent up a report that there had been 11 individuals that had been transported from al-Asad air base to receive additional treatment and screening based on exhibiting concussion-like symptoms and the possibility of TBI,” Hoffman said, using an acronym to describe traumatic brain injuries.

The Defense Department’s top spokesman also shot back at claims that the Donald Trump administration was trying to de-emphasize possible American injuries in the wake of the attack. “This idea that there was an effort to de-emphasize injuries for some sort of amorphous political agenda doesn’t hold water to what the administration has said on the record,” he said.