In an interview with The Epoch Times' Pentagon reporter Ryan Morgan on September 9, 2026, at the end of a visit to a Philadelphia shipyard, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao described what Iran did to the U.S. Navy's headquarters in the Middle East. “They blew the hell out of Bahrain,” he said.
Naval Support Activity Bahrain houses the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Iranian forces began targeting it after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. Asked about the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln's long deployment, Cao said the damage left the Lincoln's crew with “no place for them to pull in.” Asked whether returning to the base would be necessary to sustain deployments like that one, he said, “I have a task force that's looking at that.” The Epoch Times reported that the Navy is evaluating what to do with the installation.
The significance is who said it and that it was on the record. Open-source imagery and analyses had long indicated extensive damage, but the Pentagon had not publicly acknowledged it (see Sailors Enforcing Trump's Iran Blockade Are Going Hungry as 'USS Hunger Games' Photos Go Viral, where the attacks on the base pushed resupply to Diego Garcia, roughly 2,200 miles away). The Epoch Times, a conservative outlet, called Cao's remark “a direct and official acknowledgement.” Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin called it “a pretty stunning admission,” adding, “Haven't heard a senior US official admit this on the record until now.”
The comment lands in a wider debate about whether U.S. bases in the region are still tenable. Retired Gen. David Petraeus, a former CENTCOM commander, told The Cipher Brief last month that the current outposts “are no longer viable,” and that the current commander has largely run combat operations from a distance rather than from the forward headquarters in Qatar. “This is a result of the Iranians having capabilities they didn't have before,” Petraeus said, “in terms of the numbers of drones and the numbers of missiles with the range required to hold our facilities at risk.”
Cao, acting secretary since April, awaits Senate consideration as Trump's nominee for the permanent post (see Trump's New Acting Navy Secretary Once Asked for a KKK Hood With 'Slits' So He Could 'See Better' and Trump Launches a War With Iran Without Congressional Approval, Killing the Supreme Leader, Bombing a School Full of Children, and Triggering a Regional War).