Senate Democrats call for hearing on Iran war strain on troops

Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are requesting a congressional hearing on troop welfare in the Iran war following the demanding deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

The lawmakers on Monday called on the committee’s Republican chairman, Roger Wicker (Miss.), to convene a hearing with Pentagon leadership to investigate the planning behind extended deployments in the conflict and their growing strain on troops.

“We believe it is critical that we conduct public oversight to ensure that whenever we ask the military to answer the nation’s call, we will have their backs — not leave them stranded with no support,” the senators wrote in a letter to Wicker.

The letter is led by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois and is signed by every member of the minority, except for Jack Reed (R.I.), the panel’s ranking member.

Wicker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The calls for a public hearing come after Stars and Stripes and other news outlets reported on the demanding 9-month deployment of the Lincoln, which included few port calls and nearly 200 days in a combat zone.

The USS George Washington arrived to relieve the Lincoln last week.

Sailors aboard the Lincoln said at least one fellow service member had been stopped from jumping overboard during the ship’s lengthy deployment. Family members said the crew endured food and supply shortages, broken facilities and mail disruptions.

“This has revealed the real impact of unplanned deployment extensions on our ability to maintain and logistically support our ships in a contested environment,” the Democrats wrote.

They also noted the record-breaking deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, which spent 11 months on duty after being redirected from a routine deployment in Europe to support operations against Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea and then the Iran war in the Middle East.

The ship broke a post-Vietnam War record for the longest aircraft carrier deployment in April, a month after three sailors were injured and 600 others were displaced due to a fire that broke out in the ship’s main laundry areas.

The ship detoured to Greece for emergency repairs before being sent back to the Red Sea to support Operation Epic Fury.

“This administration has failed to explain why it has insisted on stretching our sailors in this way without adequate planning,” Democrats wrote.

The lawmakers said they were also concerned about the toll of back-to-back deployments on soldiers and airmen. They said U.S. military bases in the Middle East have been stretched thin by the influx of additional units for the war.

“We request a public hearing to help Congress and the public better understand how we got here and how the Department will ensure it never happens again,” the letter stated, referring to the Department of Defense.

The Democrats said they wanted the Pentagon to explain the readiness impacts of the deployments, how it plans for relief rotations and to detail how it plans to sustain troops as the war in Iran shows no signs of resolution.

Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said many of the concerning news reports about the Lincoln had been resolved by the time he visited the carrier earlier this month.

But he noted in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that military leaders owed service members and their families “transparency, empathy and responsiveness, especially when public reports raise anxieties at home.”