Top War Admiral Visits Sailors on USS Carrier Under Scrutiny

The top US commander running the Iran war quietly flew out to the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday, dropping in as the carrier wraps up a punishing deployment that's drawing scrutiny back home. Admiral Brad Cooper's visit capped a 10-day swing through key Middle East allies and came as the Lincoln heads home after roughly nine months at sea, more than 200 days in a combat zone, and over 10,000 sorties launched, said acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, reports the Wall Street Journal. "History will record this deployment as one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era," Cooper said in a statement released Saturday, per the AP.

But sailors' families and lawmakers—led by Senate Democrats—have pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over reports of conditions aboard the ship, ranging from plumbing problems to limited fresh food and mounting mental-health strain. One sailor went overboard in August in an apparent suicide attempt and was quickly rescued, a US official says. The Pentagon and Navy call the concerns exaggerated and say only a small number of mental-health cases have been treated. Meanwhile, the USS George Washington is departing its post in the Pacific and is headed to the Mideast to replace the Lincoln.