Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about War Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s first drug boat strike after he reportedly ordered the U.S. military to kill two survivors from it.
The Washington Post reported that a Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug vessel left two survivors clinging to the wrecked boat, leading to Hegseth ordering a follow-up strike and telling a commander to “kill everybody” still alive. The Department of War and Hegseth himself have denied the story, calling it “fabricated.”
But the report has led to scrutiny of the tactic the Pentagon has used for months to crack down on drug trafficking. On Saturday, it caught the attention of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, with leadership from both vowing “vigorous oversight” of the drug boat strikes.
It only continued on Sunday, with multiple Democratic senators and Republican congressman suggesting if the report is true, Hegseth may have committed a war crime.
“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. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said on CBS News’s Face the Nation.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) echoed Kaine’s concerns in an appearance on ABC News’s This Week.
“I think it’s very possible there was a war crime committed,” he said, before adding that the designation hinges on the Trump administration’s declaration that the United States is an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. “And so I do believe that the secretary of defense should be held accountable for giving those kinds of orders.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, also told CNN’s Dana Bash that the reported follow-up strike “seems to” constitute a war crime.
“If that is true, if what has been reported is accurate, I’ve got serious concerns about anybody in that chain of command stepping over a line that they should never step over. We are not Russia, we’re not Iraq. We hold ourselves to a very high standard of professionalism,” Kelly said on State of the Union.
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, appeared more skeptical of the report itself, while also acknowledging the strike would be a war crime.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said on State of the Union he “very seriously” doubts the second strike was actually ordered by Hegseth.
“I don’t think this story is accurate,” Mullin said. “I don’t know if I believe that at all because we’re doing alleged sources, nothing has been verified by this.”
Reps. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Don Bacon (R-NE) both suggested the strike would be a war crime, though Bacon similarly cast doubt that Hegseth ordered it.
MARK KELLY SAYS REPORTED SECOND STRIKE ON SUSPECTED DRUG BOAT SURVIVORS ‘CLEARLY NOT LAWFUL’
“I don’t think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors, because that’s a clear violation of the law of war,” Bacon said on ABC’s This Week. “So I’m very suspicious that he would’ve done something like that because it would go against common sense.”
In his response to the report when it dropped on Friday, Hegseth maintained that all of the over 20 drug boat strikes he has ordered are “in compliance with the law of armed conflict.”
