Top military officials briefed several congresspeople last Thursday on the multiple Sept. 2 strikes that targeted alleged “narco-terrorist” Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean Sea, showing classified footage of the hits to lawmakers on related committees, reported CBS News.
The strikes in early September prompted a slew of subsequent attacks in the waters, with a total of 22 strikes causing at least 87 deaths, stated The Guardian. President Donald Trump and his administration have repeatedly cited the grave, looming threat of drug trafficking into the U.S. as the rationale for the attacks.
“Every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives,” the President told reporters last Wednesday.
However, Secretary Pete Hegseth, the head of the recently rebranded U.S. Department of War, has faced mounting scrutiny due to growing speculation that the second Sept. 2 strike was deliberately ordered under specific direction to eliminate all crew members. Resulting from this scrutiny, Navy Admiral Frank M. Bradley, the Special Operations commander who oversaw the operation, met with lawmakers on the Hill to share more information and video of the strikes. In the closed-door meeting, he stated that Hegseth had never issued an order to kill everyone on board the targeted vessels, reported CBS News.
Nonetheless, the footage shared was met with various responses. While Democrats rallied at the video, Republicans downplayed its severity.
Representative Jim Himes (D-CT), Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, voiced his utmost astonishment and disgust with the video.
“[The video was] one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” he told reporters.
In addition to emphasizing the shock factor of the footage, Himes also called the legality of the attacks into question.
“Under the [Department of Defense] manual for abiding by the laws of armed conflict, the specific example given of an impermissible action is attacking a shipwreck,” he said. “Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors.”
GOP lawmakers did not express this same level of concern and instead insisted that the attacks, justified and lawful, were necessary to work towards the administration’s goal of reducing drug trafficking.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), member of the chamber’s Armed Services Committee, described the footage he witnessed: “[there were] two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight,” he told reporters. He claimed that he did not perceive “anything disturbing about” the “entirely lawful” strikes, reported CBS News.
President Trump claims that although he was not made aware of the order to strike the already-damaged boat a second time, he would be supportive of the footage being released to the public.
As the conflict and pattern of strikes by the U.S. in the Caribbean Sea continue to unfold, lawmakers have promised to keep a trained eye on the actions of Secretary Hegseth’s Department of War.
“This briefing confirmed my worst fears about the nature of the Trump administration’s military activities, and demonstrates exactly why the Senate Armed Services Committee has repeatedly requested– and been denied– fundamental information, documents and facts about this operation,” Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of this committee, said in a statement. “This must and will be the only beginning of our investigation into this incident.”
