Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on Iran to make a deal over its nuclear program
The Pentagon has told a second aircraft carrier strike group to prepare to deploy to the Middle East as the U.S. military readies for a potential attack on Iran, according to three U.S. officials.
President Trump said Tuesday that he was weighing sending a second carrier to the Middle East to prepare for military action if negotiations with Iran failed. The order to deploy could be issued in a matter of hours, one of the officials said.
The officials cautioned that Trump hadn’t yet given an official order to deploy the second carrier, and that plans could change. The carrier would join aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln that is already in the region.
One of the officials said the Pentagon was readying a carrier to deploy in two weeks, likely from the U.S. East Coast. The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush is completing a series of training exercises off the coast of Virginia, and it could potentially expedite those exercises, officials say.
The al-Tanf base is strategically located in the tri-border area of Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. It was established as a key hub for operations by the global coalition against Islamic State terrorists.