In the Trump administration’s Sept. 2 opening salvo against boats it says are carrying cartel drugs to America, it gave orders for a lethal U.S. military strike.
But when two members of the crew clung to the boat’s wreckage after the first missile hit, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley ordered a second strike to carry out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s initial order – issued before the operation began – to “kill everybody,” according to a Nov. 28 report in The Washington Post.
This second strike, which could be deemed illegal under international humanitarian law if it targeted surviving crew members, was confirmed in a briefing Tuesday by Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson. Ms. Wilson said Mr. Hegseth authorized the initial attack but did not utter the words attributed to him by The Post. She didn’t comment directly on whether the second strike targeted survivors.
Why We Wrote This
Though the Trump administration says its strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean are legal, the actions are raising questions about potential war crimes and generating support for more congressional oversight.
The strike is drawing the sharpest scrutiny to date of Mr. Trump’s boat offensive.
Mr. Hegseth has defended the administration’s strikes, including in a social media post last Friday in which he criticized Biden administration policies. That administration “coddled terrorists,” he wrote. “We kill them.”
But on Monday evening, Mr. Hegseth also appeared to be distancing himself from the September strike – which some lawmakers have called a potential war crime – when he posted that he supports Admiral Bradley “and the combat decisions he has made.”
In the Pentagon press briefing Tuesday, notable for its lack of challenging questions from reporters allowed in the room, Ms. Wilson reiterated that it was Admiral Bradley who made the “decision to restrike” the vessel. She added that Mr. Hegseth “stands behind Admiral Bradley 100 percent.”
Though the administration has said that Admiral Bradley was operating “under clear and long-standing authorities,” these statements are raising concerns that the administration is hiding behind, rather than backing, the U.S. military and prioritizing the protection of its officials over that of service members. It is also generating support for congressional oversight of the administration’s attacks on alleged cartel boats in a way that other incidents have not. (So far 21 strikes have killed more than 80 people since Sept. 2.)
In a rare bipartisan statement, Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a Mississippi Republican, and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the committee’s top Democrat, said they will be “conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts.” The House Armed Services Committee said it, too, would launch an investigation.
What’s the difference between this “kill” order and other lethal boat strikes?
The Trump administration has declared the U.S. to be in armed conflict with Venezuelan drug dealers, calling them narco-terrorists,’ and it has argued that it can use the United States military to wage these battles.
U.S. law allows troops to kill America’s enemies during combat operations. But even some analysts who accept the Trump administration’s argument that the U.S. is essentially “at war” see the September follow-up strike as illegal since it targeted people who are “hors de combat,” which in humanitarian law parlance means they are helpless and unable to fight. The Geneva Conventions, international treaties that aim to limit the barbarities of war, stipulate that those unable to take part in hostilities must be protected. This includes “wounded, sick, or shipwrecked” persons.
Pentagon officials have reportedly told lawmakers that the second strike was carried out to sink the boat to prevent it from interfering with navigation by other ocean-going vessels.
Mr. Hegseth, in his social media post last Friday, called the recent press reports “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors.” He also defended the boat strikes as “highly effective,” intentionally “lethal,” and “in compliance with the law of armed conflict.’’
What are the arguments around the legality of the second strike?
The Trump administration says that it is acting in self-defense by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs that kill Americans to the U.S., and it has vowed to continue its boat strikes.
Mr. Hegseth has also referred to the boat attacks as “kinetic” strikes that appear to conform to his strategy for pursuing “maximum lethality” and his pledge to continue pushing back on what he has described as restrictive rules of engagement. Later Tuesday, at a Cabinet meeting, Mr. Hegseth further defended the follow-up September strike by saying the boat “exploded in fire, smoke, you can’t see anything. … This is called the fog of war.” He said that he “didn’t stick around” for the second strike, but that the admiral in charge “made the right call.”
Whether or not the U.S. is in armed conflict with cartels, the “intentional targeting of defenseless persons” is prohibited under international and domestic U.S. law, says a background paper published Nov. 29 by a group of former U.S. military lawyers known as JAGs, or judge advocate generals.
Beyond the Geneva Conventions, not only does international law prohibit killing survivors, it also “requires the attacking force to protect, rescue, and, if applicable, treat them as prisoners of war. Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both,” the Former JAGs Working Group, including between 40 and 50 former U.S. military lawyers, wrote.
The group was founded in February following the firing of several top JAGs by the Trump administration. It acquired “a few more members” last weekend, after The Washington Post article came out, says retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper, a founder of the group.
“We believe the orders that were given – and the orders that were executed all along what we call the ‘kill chain’ – were unlawful,” he says. “They should not have been given, they should not have been obeyed, and those who gave and obeyed those orders should be held responsible.”
Senior officers are obliged to push back on orders they think are unlawful, Mr. Lepper argues. And junior troops pulling the trigger should still be “very concerned,” he adds.
“Their chain of command failed them,’’ he says. “If the facts are true, then an enormous burden was placed on junior personnel [to carry out the strikes] – a burden that should not have been theirs to bear.’’
Is Mr. Hegseth’s job at risk?
President Donald Trump has said Mr. Hegseth told him he did not give an order to kill all the crew members in the Sept. 2 missile hit, “and I believe him, 100 percent.”
The president also said on Sunday that he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike. ”The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday that a second strike took place on Sept. 2. She also said that Admiral Bradley ordered it.
“The admiral was within clear and long-standing authorities,’’ said Ms. Wilson, reading a prepared statement to Pentagon reporters Tuesday. The press briefing was notable for its lack of what would have traditionally been tough questioning from mainstream media, who have left the Pentagon press corps after refusing to have their reporting vetted by the Trump administration.
During the Sept. 2 strikes, Admiral Bradley was running the Joint Special Operations Command, which carries out some of the U.S. military’s most sensitive missions. In the weeks following, the admiral began running U.S. Special Operations Command, a promotion put forward by President Trump and confirmed by a unanimous Senate vote.
By emphasizing the admiral’s role, the administration this week may be distancing itself from the strike decision. This comes as top Democratic and Republican lawmakers are voicing concerns that any such second strike during the September operation, as described in the press, would be a clear violation of the laws of war.
“Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.
It would also be “completely outside of anything that’s been discussed with Congress,” he added.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said on CBS that the attack, if accurately reported, “rises to the level of a war crime.”
Admiral Bradley is expected to be on Capitol Hill on Thursday to answer questions in a classified briefing. In the meantime, Sen. Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat who released a video with five other lawmakers last month, reminding U.S. troops that they could refuse unlawful orders – an act President Trump said made the lawmakers traitors – called for an investigation.
“If there is anyone who needs to answer questions in public and under oath,” Senator Kelly said in a press conference Monday, “it is Pete Hegseth.”
