Washington: United States lawmakers who watched classified footage of strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat have emerged with different interpretations of what occurred, but accept that War Secretary Pete Hegseth did not issue an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel.
The admiral in charge of the operation, Frank “Mitch” Bradley, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Dan Caine briefed lawmakers on Thursday (Friday AEDT) amid serious concerns in Congress and among legal experts that the US had committed a war crime by firing upon survivors of the initial strike.
It followed a report in The Washington Post alleging that Hegseth had instructed the admiral to “kill everybody” on board – a claim he strongly denied.
Both Democrats and Republicans said they accepted Caine and Bradley’s evidence that no such order was given. However, they differed on their interpretations of the footage.
Democratic congressman Jim Himes said the videos showed two survivors in “clear distress” who were unable to continue with their mission and posed no further threat to the US.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” he told reporters following the briefing.
“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States.
“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors – bad guys, but attacking shipwrecked sailors.”
Such an action is against international laws of armed conflict and contravenes the policies of the US military.
But Republican senator from Arkansas Tom Cotton said the footage showed the two men trying to flip the boat back around and “remain in the battle”.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight,” he said.
“I didn’t see anything disturbing about it.”
Cotton confirmed there were four strikes against the boat in total, killing 11 people on board. He said Bradley’s team did exactly what the country expected of them.
“The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2 were entirely lawful and needful,” he said.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no order to ‘give no quarter’ or to ‘kill them all’. There was no vocal order either.”
Cotton said that in subsequent boat strikes, survivors who were actually shipwrecked and distressed, and not attempting to continue their mission, were “treated as they should be” and picked up by the US military.
“Our military always obeys the laws of war,” he said.
Democratic senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who was also briefed on the classified material, appeared to share his Democratic colleague’s version of events.
“That video was very disturbing, and I think Congress needs to see it,” he said, adding that the legal opinion underlying the strikes should be made public.
There have now been strikes on 21 boats, killing 82 alleged drug smugglers, the Pentagon said in a briefing on Wednesday.
“We all know that our country’s record of interventions in the Caribbean, Central America and South America over the past 100-plus years hasn’t been a perfect record,” Warner said.
Following Cotton’s comments, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Post must retract its story alleging Hegseth issued an order to kill everyone on the boat.
“It’s an insult to the American People & to everyone who wears the uniform of our country,” he wrote on X.
The Post has not retracted the story. “The Washington Post is proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism,” a spokesperson for the newspaper has previously said.
The developments came as the inspector general for the Department of Defence – or Department of War as it is now known – released a report that found Hegseth breached department rules by sending sensitive, nonpublic operational information to a Signal group chat this year.
The finding related to operational details about imminent air strikes against Houthi rebel targets in Yemen. Unbeknownst to Hegseth, the group chat created by then national security adviser Michael Waltz included a prominent journalist, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
Hegseth’s use of his personal mobile phone to conduct official business and send sensitive information risked “potential compromise” and endangered US military personnel, the report found.
“The secretary’s actions created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed US mission objectives and potential harm US pilots,” it said.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via Twitter or email.
