U.S. military officials said Thursday that the aircraft carrier USS George Washington has made it to the Arabian Sea, where it will replace a similar vessel that has gone months without a port stop amid the Iran war.
The George Washington will replace the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been in the Middle East for months, launching fighter jets and carrying nearly 5,000 sailors as part of a broader armada that the Pentagon assembled in an effort to deter Iran.
Troops on the Abraham Lincoln have reported shortages of fresh food, numerous plumbing mishaps and general frustration with the open-ended nature of their deployment. After media reports focused on the issues, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth played down the problems, with Hegseth saying they had been “completely misrepresented.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, who oversees operations in the Middle East as head of U.S. Central Command, visited the Abraham Lincoln last weekend. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, he said that he’d told the sailors they had “delivered a performance for the ages” and would soon be going home. He acknowledged challenges with living conditions on the vessel but said the concerns raised were largely “old news” and had been resolved months earlier.
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