Democratic senators demand review of conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, other US warships participating in Iran blockade
By Davis Winkie, CNN
(CNN) — Two influential Democratic senators are demanding that the Pentagon investigate quality-of-life issues aboard Navy ships participating in the standoff with Iran, according to a letter shared exclusively with CNN.
In the letter sent Monday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, the lawmakers requested “an immediate independent strategic review” of the recent deployments of the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carriers and the USS Benfold destroyer, which spent four days last month without power in the South China Sea after an engineering failure.
The two carriers experienced extended deployments, with the well-being of crew members on the Lincoln gaining scrutiny earlier this month amid reports of difficult conditions.
The demand for an investigation came from the top Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee — Patty Murray of Washington, the committee vice chair, and Chris Coons of Delaware, who is also the top Democrat on the committee’s defense panel. The committee is considered powerful because it writes federal budget laws.
The requested independent review, the senators wrote, “should examine readiness issues related to operations, manning, quality of life, including mental health, and culture on the ships as well as communications with the crews’ families.” The senators asked that the review, if authorized, provide recommendations “to improve future extended deployments for sailors and Marines.”
The Ford recently completed a record-long deployment that included combat missions against Venezuela and Iran. The Lincoln is on its way home to San Diego to end a similarly long deployment that has featured virtually no shore time for sailors since a December 2025 stopover in Guam.
CNN previously reported that extended deployments beyond the Navy’s own seven-month target length have become increasingly common in recent years, with the median length of US-based aircraft carrier deployments steadily increasing since 2020.
Both the Ford and Lincoln experienced issues impacting their crew members, and the senators asked that the Navy detail plans to prevent similar issues in the future.
The Ford suffered a major fire that started in the ship’s laundry department and required 30 hours to defeat, leading to roughly 600 sailors losing access to their bunks.
And CNN previously reported that sailors aboard the Lincoln experienced disruptions to the mail system and intermittent shortages of supplies such as hygiene items and fresh food.
Cao, in an August 14 statement on the Lincoln’s deployment, praised the crew’s endurance and argued that “our young men and women have been pushed to their limits — but they have never broken.”
Davis Winkie’s work at CNN is supported by a partnership between Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners (JFP). CNN retains full editorial control of the reporting.
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