US admiral says there was no ‘kill them all’ order in ship attack under congressional review
A U.S. Navy admiral told lawmakers Thursday there was no “kill ’em all” order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but serious questions and concerns remain as Congress takes a hard look at an attack that killed two survivors of an initial strike on a suspected drug boat in international waters near Venezuela.
Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley “was very clear that he did not receive such an order, to give no quarter or to kill them all. He received an order that, of course, was written in great detail,” Senator Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after a classified briefing in Washington, DC.
Lawmakers who lead the House and Senate intelligence committees in Congress came away with different descriptions of what the two survivors were doing when they were killed.
Cotton said he saw them “trying to overturn a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States so they could stay in the fight.”
He added that “several minutes” passed between the first and second attacks, which consisted of four missile strikes. He said it was “gratifying” that the U.S. military was leading “the battle” against the cartels.
But Democrats who were also briefed and saw video of the slain survivors questioned the Trump administration’s reasoning and said the incident was deeply concerning.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in my career in public service,” said Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “You have two individuals in obvious distress, with no means of transportation, with a destroyed ship, who were killed by the United States.”
“The order was basically: destroy the drugs, kill all 11 people on the boat,” said Washington state Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Smith, who is calling for further investigation, said the survivors were “essentially two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized, inoperable boat, drifting in the water.”
Smith acknowledged there was likely cocaine on the boat, but he objects to the Republican administration’s justification for continuing attacks on suspected drug traffickers who may or may not be headed to the United States. “That’s really the crux of the problem in all of this,” he said. “That incredibly broad definition, I think, is what triggers all of these problems around the use of deadly force and the use of the military.”
Most lawmakers at the briefings, including senators, declined to comment as they left.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Admiral Bradley on Capitol Hill for sessions that came at a potentially crucial time in the ongoing Congressional investigation into Hegseth’s handling of the military operation in international waters near Venezuela.
WATCH | Serious questions about legality of any strike, says former State Department official:
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Lawmakers want a full accounting of the strikes after The Washington Post reported last week that on September 2, Bradley ordered an attack on two survivors to comply with Hegseth’s directive to “kill everyone.” Legal experts say the attack amounts to a crime if survivors were targeted, and lawmakers on both sides are demanding accountability.
The legality of the deadly strikes and the treatment of suspected drug transporters as “enemy combatants” without congressional authorization had already been questioned by several legal experts. Separately, the head of US Southern Command – which oversees operations in the Caribbean Sea – unexpectedly announced his resignation in mid-October, well before the end of his term.
Military officials knew there were survivors in the water after the initial strike but carried out the next strike under the pretext that they needed to sink the ship, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Democrats have called on the Trump administration to release the full video of the Sept. 2 attack, as well as written records of Hegseth’s orders and possible directives.
Republicans, who control the national security committees, have not publicly called for the documents but have pledged to review them in depth.
“The investigation is going to be done based on the numbers,” said Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We will find out the truth on the ground.”
More than 80 people were killed in the series of U.S. military strikes, and two survivors of an ensuing boat strike were repatriated to their home countries.
On Thursday evening, the United States Southern Command announced that it had carried out another strike against a small boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, after a pause of almost three weeks. There were four victims, according to the social media post.
On December 4, under the direction of @Secwar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear, conducted a deadly kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a designated terrorist organization. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and… pic.twitter.com/pqksvxM3HP
President Donald Trump has supported Hegseth as he defends his handling of the attack.
Hegseth said the aftermath of a first strike on the boat had been clouded by the “fog of war.” He also said he “did not stay” during the second strike, but that Bradley “did the right thing” and “had full authority” to do so.
Many, including Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, view the U.S. military operation as part of an effort to bring about a change of government in the South American country. Maduro acknowledged Wednesday that he spoke by phone last month with Trump, who confirmed the call days earlier.
Hegseth criticized for discussion of Houthi strike
Also Thursday, the Defense Department’s inspector general released a partially redacted report on Hegseth’s use of the messaging app Signal in March to share sensitive information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants. The report reveals that Hegseth was endangering the military by doing this on his personal phone.
In at least two separate discussions on Signal, Hegseth provided the exact timing of the warplane launches and when the bombs would be dropped – before the men and women carrying out these attacks on behalf of the United States took off.
Hegseth’s use of the app came to light when a reporter, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to a Signal text chain by then-national security adviser Mike Waltz as several senior officials were gathered to discuss the March 15 military operations against the Iran-backed Houthis.
Hegseth had created another Signal chat with 13 people, including his wife and brother, where he shared similar details about the same strike, the Associated Press reported.
The signal is encrypted but is not authorized to carry classified information and is not part of the Pentagon’s secure communications network.
Hegseth previously said that none of the information shared in the chats was classified. Several current and former military officials told AP that such specific details, especially before a strike takes place, were not appropriate to share on an unsecured device.
The revelations have drawn scrutiny, with Democratic lawmakers and a small number of Republicans saying Hegseth posted the information on Signal chats before the military planes reached their targets, potentially putting those pilots’ lives in danger. They said lower-ranking members of the military would have been fired for such misconduct.
Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes said a discussion about Houthi airstrikes accidentally leaked to a reporter could have easily been intercepted by U.S. rivals.
The United States has launched a broad offensive against the Houthis, after the militant group launched a series of missile and drone attacks on ships in late 2023 in what their leaders had described as an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis’ campaign has significantly reduced trade flows through the Red Sea corridor.
Following the disclosure of Hegseth’s Signal chat in which the Atlantic editor-in-chief participated, the magazine published the entire thread in late March. Hegseth had released extensive details about an impending strike, using military language and specifying when a “strike window” begins, where a “target terrorist” was located, the temporal elements surrounding the attack, and when various weapons and aircraft would be used in the strike.
A Pentagon spokesperson called the inspector general’s report a “TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth,” a claim that has been criticized by Democratic lawmakers.
“This is not an isolated error. It reflects a broader pattern of recklessness and poor judgment by a secretary who has repeatedly shown he is in over his head,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said in a statement.
The report’s preliminary findings were first reported Wednesday by CNN.
Read the full report:
