US has decided to send a replacement carrier in the Middle East after reports of sailor’s mental health crisis due to extended deployment.
According to Associates Press, the Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln has been supporting the US war against Iran, and its deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 260 days.
Several Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday, August 13, said were “completely misrepresented.”
Extended deployments of carriers during the Iran conflict have raised concerns about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods as well as the increasing strain on the ship and its equipment.
While renewed hostilities between the US and Iran have calmed in recent weeks, the Navy has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.
Hegseth told reporters that the US can maintain the blockade “indefinitely.”
New aircraft carrier heads Middle East
A Navy statement said that the USS George Washington left port in Da Nang, Vietnam, last week.
The carrier, along with a cruiser and a destroyer, have since been spotted crossing the Singapore Strait.
A Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive ship details, confirmed that the Washington was in the Strait of Malacca, which links the Pacific and Indian oceans and puts the carrier on a course to head into the Indian Ocean.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the Washington would replace the Lincoln as one of the two aircraft carriers now stationed in the Middle East.
The move would leave the waters of the Pacific without a US carrier presence for an unknown period of time.
The Lincoln originally deployed November 21 from San Diego, and it arrived in the Middle East in January, ahead of the launch of the Iran war on February 28.
The Navy conceded that the conflict created a “highly contested environment where traditional supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions.”
Democratic lawmakers are calling for investigations, more information and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship, which was originally set to return home in May.
