US President Donald Trump said today that he is certain Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not authorise a second strike on a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean after the initial attack failed to kill everyone aboard.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said, “He said he did not say that, and I believe him 100%.”
The Pentagon is under increasing scrutiny following a Washington Post report alleging that Pete Hegseth instructed forces to carry out a deadly strike on boats and explicitly required that everyone on board be killed. According to the report, this order resulted in a suspected second strike on 2 September targeting the damaged hull of a boat to kill two individuals who had survived the initial attack.
“I’m going to find out about it, but Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump said, according to Bloomberg. When questioned about whether a follow-up strike would be lawful, he responded, “No, I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal.”
Experts say the naval operations have been conducted under questionable legal authority, and they have increasingly unsettled US allies. The administration contends the vessels qualify as valid targets because they are allegedly transporting drugs.
Trump said he had no worries about legal objections “because you can see the boats. You can see the drugs in the boats, and each boat is responsible for killing 25,000 Americans. So I think they do an amazing job.”
The Republican-controlled armed services committees in both the Senate and House have announced they intend to carry out “vigorous oversight” of the alleged double-tap strike, which has sparked worries that the US might have breached the laws governing armed conflict, a report by CNN noted.
The report of a second strike intended to kill injured survivors prompted uncommon criticism from Republicans. Ohio Representative Mike Turner told CBS on Sunday that, if verified, the action would be an “illegal act", and Nebraska’s Don Bacon told ABC it would be a “clear violation of the law of war".
Senator Roger Wicker, who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said the committee will look into the strikes following the report.
