The deputy commander of the American-led military operation in Iraq said the Defense Department was putting the service members through medical examinations to see if the headaches and other complaints amounted to traumatic stress injuries. Some of the affected troops were mere feet away from where the Iranian missiles struck, although they were in protective bunkers, Defense Department officials said.

“I haven’t seen the president’s comments, so I won’t comment on them,” Maj. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich of the Air Force told reporters during a news conference at the Pentagon. “I probably wouldn’t even if I had.”

He added: “I can just tell you from the perspective of a commander on the ground that we’re going to take symptoms from any kind of injury as seriously as we can.”

[Update: The Pentagon now says 50 troops sustained brain injuries in the strike.]

At a separate event earlier in the day, General Grynkewich denied that the White House had influenced how and when the military acknowledged that several American troops at the Asad base in Iraq had concussion symptoms as a result of the Iranian missile strikes and were being flown to a United States military hospital in Germany for treatment.

“We were not influenced by anyone,” he said.

The Trump administration had initially said that there were no injuries from the Iranian attack. If there was any delay in reporting the injuries, General Grynkewich said, it was because “it takes a bit of time for information to work its way up the chain of command” and eventually to the Pentagon.