Congress to probe US strikes on boats in Caribbean

The U.S. Senate and House Armed Services committees will open bipartisan inquiries into U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea, with a focus on an alleged follow-on attack that The Washington Post reported killed two survivors of the initial operation.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., issued a joint statement Friday promising “vigorous oversight” of the killings.

“The Committee is aware of recent news reports — and the Department of Defense’s initial response — regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM (Southern Command) area of responsibility. The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances,” Wicker and Reed said.

Similarly, House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a joint statement Saturday that the panel “is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”

“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,” according to the statement.

The inquiries mark a rare bipartisan check on President Donald Trump’s administration since his second term began in January. With the exception of voting to release the federal case files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which Trump eventually endorsed, Republicans have largely left Trump’s decisions and policies unchallenged.

Follow-on attack reported

Lawmakers’ attention was retrained on the already legally questionable U.S. operations targeting alleged narcotics boats after an investigative report published Friday by The Washington Post revealed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave verbal orders to kill everyone during a Sept. 2 operation —  the first of several U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea that have killed roughly 80.

According to the report, two survivors clung to burning wreckage after an initial hit. Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, who was commanding the attack from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, ordered a second, or follow-on, strike to fulfill Hegseth’s order and kill the remaining survivors. States Newsroom has not independently confirmed the details.

Hegseth called the report “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory,” in a post on social media Friday.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that the follow-on strike could rise “to the level of a war crime if it’s true.”

“If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DoD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance,” Kaine said.

A working group of former military lawyers issued a statement Friday urging Congress to investigate the Sept. 2 strike.

“Since orders to kill survivors of an attack at sea are ‘patently illegal,’ anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both,” according to the statement published by Just Security, a journal focused on national security published by the New York University School of Law Reiss Center on Law and Security.

A bipartisan effort, led by Kaine, to stop Trump’s deadly strikes in the Caribbean narrowly failed in the Senate in early November.

White House confirms second strike

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was met with numerous questions about the Post report at Monday’s press briefing.

A reporter asked Leavitt, “Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?”

“The latter is true, and I have a statement to read for you here,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump and Hegseth have authority to conduct lethal attacks on designated narco-terrorist groups.

“With respect to the strikes in question on Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” she said. “Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”

Leavitt’s statement was not entirely consistent with Hegseth’s denial on Friday, in which he called the reporting “fabricated.”

Trump echoes Hegseth denial

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted that” when asked about the alleged follow-on strike that killed the two survivors.

“The first strike was very lethal. It was fine, and if there were two people around — but Pete [Hegseth] said that didn’t happen,” Trump told reporters. 

“Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump continued in a back-and-forth with the press.

Trump also said Saturday he was closing the airspace above Venezuela, but tolda reporter who asked Sunday if the move previewed a U.S. airstrike of the country not to “read anything into it.”

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” he wrote on his own social media platform just before 8 a.m. Eastern Saturday.

Trump confirmed reports he spoke to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro late last month but would not reveal details of the conversation.

The U.S. has been amassing Navy vessels and troops off the coast of Venezuela for months, including the recent addition in mid-November of the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford.

This story was originally published by Stateline.