A US admiral acting under the authority of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike that targeted survivors of an initial attack on an alleged drug smuggling boat, the White House said Monday.
The legality of the Trump administration’s deadly strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific has been questioned, and reports of the follow-up attack on survivors triggered further accusations of a possible war crime.
Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro has accused Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext for “imposing regime change” in Caracas and rejected a “slave’s peace” for the region, amid mounting fears of US military action.
A total of 11 people were killed in the two strikes in early September, the first in a months-long military campaign that has so far left more than 80 dead.
Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with alleged “narco-terrorists,” and the White House said Admiral Frank Bradley, who currently leads US Special Operations Command, had acted legally and properly in ordering a second strike.
Bradley “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists.
Hegseth “authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” she said.
With pressure on the Pentagon chief, Hegseth appeared to stress the decision was Bradley’s.
“I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since,” he posted Monday evening on X, calling Bradley “an American hero.”
Some military personnel under the condition of anonymity told the Washington Post that this is “protect Pete bulls—.”
Another military official told the publication that Leavitt’s statement “left it up to interpretation” who was responsible for the second strike and implored the White House to provide more clarity.
“We will eventually find out what really happened,” promised Republican Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has opened an investigation into the matter.
Democrats also pounced on the issue, with Senator Chris Murphy accusing Hegseth of “passing the buck.”
“Both Republicans and Democrats are coming to the conclusion that this was an illegal, wildly immoral act, and he is shifting the blame,” Murphy told broadcaster CNN.
Congressman Mike Turner, a Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers have yet to be briefed on the “double-tap” strike.
“People have been very concerned about how these strikes have been operated,” Turner said on the same news broadcast.
US media reported last week that an initial September 2 strike left two people alive who were killed in a subsequent attack to fulfill Hegseth’s orders, but Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell insisted that “this entire narrative was false.”
Subsequent strikes that left survivors were followed by search-and-rescue efforts that recovered two people in one case and failed to find another later in October.
Over the line
The military action on September 2 would appear to run afoul of the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual, which states: “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
Democratic Senators Jacky Rosen and Chris Van Hollen have said the September 2 strikes may be a war crime, while Senator Mark Kelly called Monday for Congress to investigate.
“I’m concerned that if there were, in fact, as reported, survivors clinging to a damaged vessel, that that could be over a line,” the former fighter pilot and astronaut told reporters.
Kelly was one of six lawmakers who released a video last month saying “illegal orders” can be refused — a move that infuriated Trump and sparked a Pentagon probe into the “potentially unlawful comments” by the retired US Navy officer.
