Top US lawmakers from both parties expressed concern on Thursday after viewing video of a controversial double airstrike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean. The attack, which killed 11 people including two survivors of the initial strike, has sparked allegations of a possible war crime.
Democratic Representative Jim Himes described the footage as 'one of the most troubling things' he had seen in public service. He said the video showed 'two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who are killed by the United States'. However, he confirmed that Navy Admiral Frank Bradley, who commanded the attack, denied receiving a 'kill them all' order from Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton defended the strikes as 'righteous' and said Hegseth had not explicitly ordered the killing of all onboard. Cotton claimed the survivors were trying to flip their boat to 'stay in the fight' and that other 'narco terrorists' might have been coming to rescue them. He added that he saw 'nothing in there that concerned me'.
The 2 September bombing was the first in a series of attacks on vessels that President Donald Trump says are transporting drugs from Venezuela to the US. Experts have disputed that claim and questioned the legality of the air campaign. Trump posted video of the initial strike but not the follow-up attack that killed the two survivors.
Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was 'deeply disturbed' by what he saw and called for the full video to be released. He vowed to continue investigating the operation, which he said demonstrated 'exactly why the Senate armed services committee has repeatedly requested – and been denied – fundamental information about this operation'.
