Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Monday rejected Admiral Frank Bradley’s reasoning for launching a second strike on a vessel in the Caribbean as two wounded survivors clinged on to the boat.
“Under normal circumstances, it’d be court-martialed. He’d be relieved of his duties, and he’d be court-martialed,” Kendall, who served as secretary under former President Biden, said during an appearance on MS NOW. “The administration makes up logic and rationale for the things it’s doing that defy all legal history and all precedent, and that’s basically what we’re seeing here.”
Kendall’s comments come as several other former government and military leaders have also dubbed the “double tap” attack a violation of the country’s law of war manual. Bradley is slated to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on Thursday as member of Congress continue to investigate the Trump administration’s strikes in the Caribbean.
“Admiral Bradley was reported to have given an excuse, if you will, for the second engagement. That doesn’t hold water. These people were wounded. They were in the water. They were not a threat to anybody. Again, that’s a textbook example of a war crime,” Kendall said Monday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, per The Washington Post, gave orders to “kill everybody” on board the ship as part of the Trump administration’s crack-down on the alleged sale and transport of narcotics in the Latin American region.
However, Hegseth says he did not order a second strike.
“You can‘t kill survivors who can no longer fight,” John Yoo, a former adviser in the Bush administration, said during a Monday appearance on CNN. “So, the admiral should not have obeyed the order that Secretary Hegseth gave. And even the soldiers who carried out the admiral‘s orders should not have obeyed.”
Despite objection, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said Bradley acted “within his authority and the law.”
Leavitt alleged that strikes were justified after narco-trafficking groups were deemed foreign terrorist organizations, allowing for “lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war.”
Her comments contradict the country’s war manual, which states “orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
Legal experts told PBS, the fatal attack violates peacetime laws and those governing armed conflict.