Navy admiral says there was no ‘kill all’ order in attack that killed drug boat survivors

Military officials showed lawmakers video of a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat behind closed doors on Capitol Hill on Thursday and testified that there was no order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to kill everyone on board, multiple lawmakers said.

General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, briefed the leaders of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees for both the House and the Senate. The classified briefings centered on the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged drug trafficking boats off the coast of South America, including the Sept. 2 follow-on strike that has become a flashpoint in Congress.

Admiral Frank M. Bradley saw the two survivors of a September strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat as legitimate military targets based on the rules for the operation, which may have identified them as narco-terrorists, a defense official said. The military then launched a second strike on the same boat, generating controversy over whether the second strike was legal or could potentially constitute a war crime.

Sen. Tom Cotton told reporters about what he heard from Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley in a classified briefing, and Cotton is defending the attack. But a Democratic lawmaker who was also briefed says he’s deeply concerned by the video of the second strike.

While Cotton, R-Ark., defended the attack, Democrats who were also briefed and saw video of the survivors being killed questioned the Trump administration’s rationale and said the boat strike was deeply concerning.

“The order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,” said Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Smith, who is demanding further investigation, said the survivors were “basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water.”

Lawmakers want a full accounting after The Washington Post reported that Bradley on September 2^nd ordered an attack on the survivors to comply with a directive from Hegseth to “kill everybody.” Legal experts say the attack amounts to a crime if the survivors were targeted.