In the wake of a report in The Washington Post, lawmakers from both parties are raising concerns about a deadly boat strike carried out by the administration earlier this year.
Last week, The Washington Post revealed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered members of the military to kill everyone on board an alleged drug boat on September 2. After an initial strike on the vessel, there were still two survivors seen holding onto the boat’s wreckage, according to The Post. The Special Operations Commander then allegedly ordered a second strike ― which killed the two survivors ― to “comply with Hegseth’s instructions.”
It wasn’t clear if Hegseth was aware that there were survivors before the second strike, a source told CNN.
“I think it’s very possible there was a war crime committed,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
“...This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, echoed during a Sunday interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The Republican leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees said they plan to scrutinize the boat strikes.
“The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to the circumstances,” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement.
Similarly, House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said on Saturday that they’d be conducting their own inquiry.
“We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question,” they stated.
When asked about the lawmakers’ concerns, a Pentagon spokesperson told HuffPost that there would be no further comment on communications with Congress.
According to Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who spoke with The Post, any order to kill survivors who aren’t able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime.”
“Under such circumstances, not only does international law prohibit targeting these survivors, but it also requires the attacking force to protect, rescue, and, if applicable, treat them as prisoners of war,” a group of former military lawyers known as the Former JAGs Working Group wrote in a statement. “Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both.”
The Department of Defense Law of War manual also states that “orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
Hegseth on Friday disparaged the “fake news” in a post on X for “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting.” He claimed that the military’s “current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law.”
On Sunday, President Donald Trump also defended Hegseth.
“He said he didn’t do it,” Trump told reporters when pressed about the Defense Secretary’s role in the reported follow-up strike and the killing of the two survivors.
The uproar over The Post investigation adds to concerns lawmakers have previously expressed about the boat strikes since they began earlier this year. Although the Trump administration has claimed that it is targeting alleged drug boats, lawmakers have said that they failed to receive sufficient information about the legal justification for the attacks.
Van Hollen suggested Sunday that the attacks would be considered “plain murder” if the administration’s claims about being in conflict with drug cartels didn’t hold up.