WASHINGTON — A Navy admiral told lawmakers Thursday there was no "kill them all" order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth but grave questions and concerns remain as Congress scrutinizes an attack that killed two survivors of an initial strike on an alleged drug boat in international waters near Venezuela.
Adm. Frank Bradley "was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all," said Sen. Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, as he exited a classified briefing.
While Cotton, R-Ark., defended the attack, Democrats who were also briefed and saw video of the survivors being killed questioned the Trump administration's rationale and said the incident was deeply concerning.
"The order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat," said Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Smith, who demanded further investigation, said the survivors were "basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water."
Bradley was joined at the Capitol by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for briefings at a potentially crucial moment in the unfolding congressional investigation into how Hegseth handled the operation. There are questions about whether the strike may have violated the law.
Signal report
Meanwhile, a Pentagon inspector general's report made public Thursday criticized the use of unapproved messaging apps and devices across the Defense Department. The report said Hegseth put U.S. troops at risk by sharing sensitive plans about an upcoming military strike in Yemen on his personal phone.
Hegseth had the authority to declassify the material he shared with others in a Signal chat, the watchdog found, but the release of details about the strike on Houthi militants violated internal Pentagon rules about handling sensitive information that could put service members or their missions in danger.
The report noted that the information that Hegseth sent — the quantity and strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory about two to four hours before those strikes — "created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots."
Hegseth declined to be interviewed for the review.
Investigation underway
Lawmakers want a full accounting of the boat strikes after The Washington Post reported that Bradley on Sept. 2 ordered an attack on the survivors to comply with a directive from Hegseth to "kill everybody."
Legal experts say the attack amounts to a crime if the survivors were targeted.
Cotton said from watching the video, he "saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight."
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, described the survivors' state differently.
"You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, were killed by the United States," he said.
Underpinning President Donald Trump's campaign against suspected traffickers is his argument that drug cartels amount to armed combatants because their cargo poses a threat to American lives.
Smith acknowledged there was likely cocaine on the boat, but he objects to the Republican administration's rationale for continued attacks on alleged drug runners who may or may not be heading to the United States.
"That's really the core of the problem with all of this," he said. "That incredibly broad definition, I think, is what sets in motion all of these problems about using lethal force and using the military."
Democrats demand the release of the full video of the Sept. 2 attack, as well as written records of the orders and any directives from Hegseth. Republicans, who control the national security committees, have not publicly called for those documents, but have pledged a thorough review.
What else are lawmakers seeking?
The scope of the investigation is unclear, but there is other documentation of the strike that could fill in what happened. Obtaining that information, though, will largely depend on action from Republican lawmakers — a potentially painful prospect for them if it puts them at odds with the president.
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he and the Senate Armed Services Committee chair, GOP Sen. Roger Wicker, formally requested the executive orders authorizing the operations and the complete videos from the strikes. They also seek the intelligence that identified the vessels as legitimate targets, the rules of engagement for the attacks and any criteria used to determine who was a combatant and who was a civilian.
Republican lawmakers who are close to Trump sought to defend Hegseth.
More than 80 people were killed in the series of strikes that started in September.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said it was clear that Hegseth is responsible, even if the defense secretary did not explicitly order a second attack.
"He may not have been in the room, but he was in the loop," Blumenthal said. "And it was his order that was instrumental and foreseeably resulted in the deaths of these survivors."
