[technate4eva]

It is not in their best interest, since it's obvious that for at least a decade, blatantly lying and even being caught lying has no impact on their so-called credibility. Lying about this does improve morale among troops and citizens, and gives them some form of early justification. So no. They do benefit from lying about this.

[JshWright]

They why haven't they done that in any previous round of attacks? The risk of loosing credibility and giving Iran the opportunity for a propaganda win significantly outweighs any benefit to lying about this.