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Carrier swap amid strain
The United States is preparing to send the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose deployment has stretched to more than eight months as the Iran war continues.
“The Lincoln has gone roughly 200 days without a port call”
Gulf News reported the Lincoln has gone roughly 200 days without a port call, far longer than the typical 30-to-45-day interval often expected between port visits, and said the George Washington has been operating in the Western Pacific before moving west through the Strait of Malacca toward the Indian Ocean and Middle East.
The Hill said the USS George Washington, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, departed a port in Vietnam last week and was spotted crossing the Strait of Malacca on Thursday, while the Pentagon declined to comment.
NBC News reported that U.S. military leaders are privately raising concerns inside the Pentagon and the White House about low morale and widespread fatigue among American service members deployed for months to support the war with Iran.
In response to the reports, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have been “completely misrepresented,” while the Navy and Pentagon pushed back against claims the ship was abandoned or deprived of essential supplies.
Lawmakers press for access
Al Jazeera said lawmakers raised the alarm over reports of dire conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, including accounts of sailors trying to jump overboard, and described a response that included a direct appeal to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.
In a letter to Hegseth, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said the aircraft carrier, with more than 5,000 U.S. sailors and Marines, has been “continuously at sea for a record length of nearly seven months”.
Al Jazeera also reported that Senator Ruben Gallego said the navy “must allow a bipartisan Congressional Delegation to visit the USS Lincoln to conduct an oversight investigation into this horrible situation”.
The Hill framed the issue as questions over conditions aboard the Lincoln while the Navy continues to enforce the naval blockade in the Arabian Sea, barring Iranian ships from entering the country’s ports.
NBC 7 San Diego reported that when reports of food shortages aboard the ship first surfaced in April, the Navy pushed back, calling those reports “false,” while the Navy said leadership prioritized mission-critical supplies: first food, then hygiene items, then mail.
Readiness and family impact
The Hill reported that the USS Abraham Lincoln deployed from San Diego in late November and set the record for uninterrupted time at sea with more than 240 days, while it was redirected to Centcom in January and was originally scheduled to return in May with no publicly announced return date.
“Even in peacetime conditions, the quarters are cramped, the workdays are long”
Al-Monitor said Jonathan Schroden, chief research officer at the Center for Naval Analyses, described how “Even in peacetime conditions, the quarters are cramped, the workdays are long,” and warned that going beyond typical deployment lengths creates “compounding problems” for the Navy.
The same Al-Monitor report said of special concern were accounts of suicide attempts aboard the Lincoln, and it cited Navy Times reporting that two sailors tried to jump off the ship.
Newsweek quoted Republican Nebraska Representative Don Bacon saying he was “glad the USS Abraham Lincoln will soon be replaced by the USS George Washington,” and tied the replacement to countering Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
Al Jazeera said Blumenthal’s letter raised a broader question of whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of its carrier force as the mission’s end date in May has been repeatedly extended amid the war on Iran.
