The U.S. admiral overseeing the war with Iran visited the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday as the aircraft carrier prepares to return home following an extended wartime deployment, according to U.S. Central Command.
The visit by Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper capped a 10-day trip that also included visits to Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, the command said. The stop on the Lincoln comes amid reports of poor living conditions and some crew members struggling with their mental health following a nine-month deployment without port visits.
The Lincoln played a key role in the U.S. bombing against Iran and has participated in President Trump's ongoing blockade of Iranian ports. It has spent more than 200 days in a combat zone and has launched more than 10,000 sorties, said acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao.
"The Lincoln Carrier Strike Group is a strong team of high-achieving Americans standing tall with immense, justified pride in everything they accomplished," Cooper said in a statement. "History will record this deployment as one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era."
Lawmakers have expressed concern in recent days about reports detailing a lack of fresh food and personal supplies aboard the carrier, as well as plumbing backups and mental-health problems. A U.S. official confirmed that a person went overboard the Lincoln in early August but was quickly rescued.
Senate Democrats demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a letter released Saturday, saying there was "mounting evidence that conditions aboard the carrier have deteriorated to the point that the safety and wellbeing of its crew could be compromised."
Hegseth has lashed out at the reports of poor conditions, calling the issue "completely misrepresented." Trump also has played down concerns about the ship, suggesting that the lengthy naval deployment in the Middle East was "not nearly long enough."
U.S. officials say the conditions aboard the Lincoln aren't unusual for a wartime deployment but acknowledge that months without a port call can weigh on sailors and Marines. Typically, aircraft carriers pull into port to resupply and give the crew a chance to rest and regroup for several days -- something the Lincoln has been unable to do since the Iran war kicked off.
The Navy has said that the ship isn't experiencing an uptick in mental-health issues, and Cao acknowledged "a small number of mental-health cases were treated with no loss of life." Cao also said that phone calls by sailors aboard the Lincoln were limited when the operational threat was too high, and that meal plans were adjusted when a resupply was unavailable but that no meals were missed.
Cooper, a four-star commander who is one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. military, is a career Navy Surface Warfare Officer who has served in every military theater of operations. He has spent the past several years in leadership roles in Centcom, including serving as commander of U.S. naval forces in the region.
Cooper has advocated for a more forceful response to Iran's attacks in recent weeks, pushing to go beyond the smaller retaliatory airstrikes that have done little to deter Tehran from threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz and lobbing missiles at American forces in the region, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Reluctant to resume all-out war, however, Trump has shifted back to economic pressure, adopting a wait-and-see approach that would give financial sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports more time to inflict economic harm, the Journal has reported.
Hegseth said this week that the blockade could be held "indefinitely," and that the U.S. will rotate ships in and out as needed. "We'll hold it as long as we need to," he told reporters.
A prolonged blockade is likely to put more strain on naval ships and the sailors aboard them who are operating at a high tempo with little rest, according to some U.S. officials.