Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied

The USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t able to be resupplied because the U.S. Navy’s main resupply base in the Gulf of Oman was destroyed by Iranian strikes—a fact that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose not to make public, David Rhode, MSNOW’s senior national security reporter, said on Tuesday.

From late February until June, Iran launched extensive missile and drone strikes on Naval Support Activity Bahrain, causing devastating damage that was not acknowledged by the Pentagon.

The U.S. Navy was forced to evacuate most personnel, and move supply operations to a U.K. naval base on Diego Garcia, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean 2,200 miles from where two aircraft carrier groups have been operating in the Gulf of Oman.

Rhode also refuted Trump’s repeated claims that the Strait of Hormuz was open and under U.S. control. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported that a ship was attacked as recently as Tuesday, as it attempted to exit the strait. Rhode pointed to a separate incident in the Red Sea, where Iran-backed Houthis attacked a ship at the Bab el-Madeb Strait.

According to MSNOW, recent reports of horrific conditions aboard U.S. Navy ships showed that the U.S. Navy was clearly under “tremendous strain.” Family members of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have reported food shortages, and sanitation issues. During the Lincoln’s more than 200 days without a port call, there have been multiple instances where sailors have tried to jump overboard. And the problems experienced by U.S. Navy servicemembers aren’t confined to just one ship.

Rhode criticized Trump’s repeated dismissal of family members’ concerns as an “unforced political error.”