Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were largely divided along party lines in response to the closed-door briefing provided by the senior military officer who approved a controversial follow-up strike that targeted the survivors of a previous one in the Caribbean Sea.

Adm. Mitch Bradley was the commander of Joint Special Operations Command overseeing the Sept. 2 operation, which was the first time U.S. forces targeted a suspected drug smuggling vessel with a kinetic lethal strike in the Caribbean Sea. After the initial strikes, the military carried out additional ones that killed two survivors of the original ones.