'There will be more': Army secretary predicts officer retirements amid Tuberville blockade

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth warned that high-ranking military officers will leave their posts by the end of the year due to Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military promotions.

“It has been very problematic,” Wormuth said at POLITICO’s Defense Summit on Tuesday.

She cited as an example a two-star general who, while awaiting confirmation, submitted his retirement papers, citing concerns about how the job has impacted his family.

If the Senate doesn’t resolve the issue by the end of December, “there will be more of those,” Wormuth said.

The officials “have been waiting for months to have some certainty and to go do the jobs,” she said. “I really have deep concerns about what my major lieutenant colonels and colonels are thinking about this.”

Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, has held up hundreds of military promotions due to his objection to the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy, drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle. But Tuberville has stood his ground, even as the U.S. officials’ concerns about a wider conflict in the Middle East mount.

“I think some of our officers are going to say, ‘No, I don’t know if this is what I want to continue to aspire to. I’m talented, I have energy, I’m going to go work somewhere else and not have to worry about that,” she said.