U.S. Aircraft Carrier Withdraws in Defeat as Pentagon Counts Casualties
WASHINGTON -- The United States is quietly pulling its naval assets from West Asia and reassessing its entire military footprint in the Persian Gulf after months of Iranian retaliation exposed Washington’s vulnerability, with more than 750 U.S. service members wounded and the Pentagon accused of covering up the true scale of casualties.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, which played a central role in the unprovoked U.S. war on Iran that began on 28 February, is leaving West Asia with its sailors and Marines heading home after a grueling nine-month deployment, CBS News reported on Thursday.
The Lincoln’s withdrawal came as the USS George Washington arrived in West Asia on Thursday to replace it, following months of reports of deteriorating conditions
aboard the Lincoln, including suicide attempts, sanitation problems and food shortages.
One sailor told CNN that the deployment was initially intended to last for two weeks of combat operations but was extended for a further seven months.
“The main reason this deployment is so worse is because we were not supposed to come out here and fight a war,” he said.
According to Pentagon casualty data updated on Thursday, more than 750 U.S. troops have been wounded since the U.S. launched its war of aggression on Iran. The update added more than 50 wounded U.S. soldiers to the Pentagon’s war casualty database, bringing the official total to 757 wounded and 18 killed.
Those figures are drawn from two separate entries in the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System, combining the totals listed under “Overseas Operations” with those recorded for Operation Epic Fury.
The Pentagon created an Overseas Operations category last month for personnel killed or wounded from 7 July onward, separating those figures from casualties recorded under Operation Epic Fury.
The Pentagon has not specified which war the Overseas Operations casualties relate to, nor where or how the personnel were killed or wounded, prompting further questions about the transparency of its reporting.
The Intercept reported on 4 August that the split came days after a wave of Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities, and cited a U.S. government official who called the new method “designed to obscure the count” and a “casualty cover-up.”
Counting casualties left out of the database, The Intercept put the real number of U.S. personnel killed or wounded in the war on Iran above 900. The outlet has documented repeated anomalies, including the Epic Fury count dropping from 500 on 21 July to 431 without explanation.
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is reassessing its military footprint in Persian Gulf countries after months of losses inflicted by Iran.
The central question is whether to pull troops back from the Persian Gulf, where the largest U.S. bases overseas have absorbed much of the Iranian retaliatory fire, with over 200 U.S. facilities being damaged or destroyed since the war began in February.
Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, named Jordan, Israeli occupied territories, and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast as possible destinations for relocated forces, though he acknowledged the added distance was no perfect fix, as Iranian missiles have already reached all three throughout the war on Iran.
Sailors on the Lincoln and other U.S. aircraft carriers worked 16-hour days, seven days a week, slept just a few hours each night, were given little food and water, and often even lacked soap, according to a close relative of one sailor serving aboard the USS George HW Bush. The extreme conditions caused a mental health crisis among sailors that led at least two to attempt suicide by jumping overboard.
Annabelle Loma told the Military Times that her husband attempted to jump overboard from the Lincoln earlier this month. “He’s scared,” Loma said. “He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year career is ruined, just like that.”
The Lincoln crossed into West Asia in late January together with several guided-missile destroyers, part of a wider U.S. buildup that also brought fighter jets and air defense systems into the region in January – one month before the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran were launched. Trump said at the time that he was sending an “armada” toward Iran “just in case.”
Months later, that armada is withdrawing in defeat. Iranian strikes have battered American bases across the region, exposing U.S. military vulnerability and shattering Washington’s aura of invincibility. Over 200 U.S. facilities have been damaged or destroyed. The Pentagon is now weighing a smaller U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf – a retreat that would have been unthinkable before the war.
The Lincoln’s withdrawal and the reassessment of the US military footprint mark a humiliating chapter for Washington, which launched its war of aggression expecting a quick victory but instead found itself mired in a costly confrontation with a determined adversary.
As Iranian officials have repeatedly declared, the United States has tasted the bitter flavor of defeat and is now licking its wounds, returning crestfallen with its tail between its legs.