A closed-door congressional hearing regarding the authority of Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley to issue a second strike on survivors of an attack on a boat accused of carrying drugs has left at least one lawmaker aghast over the testimonies, according to The Associated Press. Several lawmakers sought the classified hearing as the Trump administration focused on striking alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea.
Bradley is divulging lawmakers into his account of how the boat strikes happened after a report in The Washington Post said the admiral ordered the Sept. 2 follow-up attack to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “kill everybody” directive. The White House has defended the second strike as self-defense while some in Congress accused Hegseth of committing war crimes.
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Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also present at the meeting.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters Thursday.
Himes said the two people the military killed in the strike were clinging to a destroyed vessel and had no means to move. The strikes have killed at least 83 people whom U.S. officials labeled as “narco-terrorists.”
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The U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats have killed at least 83 people since Sept. 2.
Members of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committee from both chambers attended the hearing, The Associated Press reported. They sought what exact orders Hegseth gave for Operation Southern Spear and his reasonings for the second strike.
Prior to the Thursday meeting, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said that if media reports were true about Hegseth’s order, it is considered a “clear violation” of Defense Department policy and international law, according to CBS News.
“And the questions that we’ve been asking for months are (to) give us the evidence that the folks on board were really narcotraffickers,” he told the network.
Senator: No ‘kill them all’ order
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told reporters Thursday that Hegseth’s alleged order to kill everybody was never made, The Associated Press reported. He heads the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Cotton said that Bradley was “very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all. He was given an order that, of course, was written down in great detail.”
Trump, Hegseth defend double-tap strike
President Donald Trump defended the second strike but told reporters at his Tuesday Cabinet meeting that he wasn’t involved and didn’t know about the second strike. The White House said Bradley gave the order for the follow-up strike.
Hegseth defended Bradley’s call on the second strike Tuesday. He watched the initial strike and then “moved on” to his next meeting. He learned about the admiral’s follow-up decision a few hours later.
“He sunk the boat and eliminated the threat. And it was the right call,” Hegseth said. “We have his back.”
Trump said he wanted the strikes to move to ashore, specifically starting in Venezuela.
“I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we’ll attack on land also, just like we attack on sea,” Trump said. “And we are going to start doing those strikes on land, too…We’re gonna start that very soon, too.”
