• Republican and Democratic leaders promise vigorous investigation into September boat strike that killed eleven people
• Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered military to kill all crew members aboard vessel
• Pentagon denies allegations while Hegseth defends strikes as lawful attacks on designated terrorist organizations

WASHINGTON, DC (TDR) — The Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee has pledged vigorous oversight following a Washington Post report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken order to kill all crew members during the first United States strike against suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean earlier this year.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, and ranking Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island issued a joint statement late Friday acknowledging recent news reports regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in United States Southern Command’s area of responsibility. The committee has directed inquiries to the Defense Department and will conduct vigorous oversight to determine facts related to these circumstances.

Washington Post Investigation Details

The Washington Post reported Friday that Hegseth gave a verbal directive during the September 2 operation, with two sources with direct knowledge stating the order was to kill everybody aboard the vessel. A missile struck the boat off Trinidad’s coast, igniting a blaze from bow to stern and killing nine of the eleven people on board. When commanders watching via live drone feed discovered two survivors clinging to the smoldering wreck, the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s directive.

“The order was to kill everybody,” one source told the Washington Post. The second strike killed both survivors who were in the water.

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Admiral Frank Mitchell Bradley, who headed Joint Special Operations Command at the time and has since been promoted to lead United States Special Operations Command, reportedly told people on a secure conference call that survivors were still legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo. SEAL Team 6 conducted intelligence collection and targeting for the attack, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Pentagon Response and Legal Defense

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell categorically denied the allegations, stating that the entire narrative is completely false. Parnell emphasized that ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and protect the homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success. Hegseth responded to the report on social media Friday evening, dismissing it as fake news designed to discredit incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.

Hegseth defended the legality of the Caribbean boat strikes, writing that current operations are lawful under both United States and international law with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict. He stated that every trafficker killed is affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and that strikes are specifically intended to be lethal kinetic strikes. The Trump administration has justified attacks by arguing the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with traffickers, with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel producing a classified memo stating military personnel engaged in lethal action in Latin America would not be exposed to future prosecution.

Legal Concerns and International Criticism

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Former military lawyer Todd Huntley, director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law, told the Washington Post that a decision to kill helpless passengers would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would constitute a war crime under international law. Huntley stated that killing any people on the boat amounts to murder because Venezuela and the United States are not in an armed conflict.

Multiple current and former uniformed lawyers told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful. Admiral Alvin Holsey, commander of United States Southern Command, offered to leave his post during a tense October meeting with Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after raising questions about strike legality. The United Kingdom stopped sharing intelligence with the United States about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in military strikes it believes are illegal.

Ongoing Strike Campaign Expands

Since the September 2 attack, the Pentagon has hit at least twenty-two more boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing another seventy-one alleged drug smugglers according to officials and internal data. Protocols were changed after the initial strike to emphasize rescuing suspected smugglers if they survived strikes, according to three people familiar with the operations. In an October 16 Caribbean strike, two men who survived were captured and later sent to Ecuador and Colombia.

Colombia’s president has accused the United States in at least one instance of killing an innocent fisherman. Trump and the Pentagon said the September 2 strike targeted members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua but have not provided evidence to support those claims. A Drug Enforcement Administration official assessed that the eleven people on the boat may have been a mix of drug runners and illegally trafficked migrants rather than all being smugglers.

Will congressional oversight lead to changes in the Trump administration’s Caribbean military campaign against suspected drug traffickers?

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