Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing heat over a strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, said in 2016 that he believed in “consequences for abject war crimes.”
“I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that,” Hegseth said during an event with the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley in April 2016.
“That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief. There’s a standard, there’s an ethos, there’s a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do,” he added.
The Hill has reached out to the Pentagon over Hegseth’s 2016 comments.
The administration is coming under scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats over an attack on what the White House says was a drug boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2. After the boat was taken out by a U.S. strike, an additional strike was launched that killed survivors from the initial attack.
On Tuesday, Hegseth said that he did not “stick around” to watch the second strike by the U.S. military in early September against the alleged drug-trafficking boat that left two survivors dead in the Caribbean.
“I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do, so I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting,” Hegseth said to reporters during a Cabinet meeting.
While an admiral ordered the strike to take out survivors, the administration has said the admiral acted legally and that Hegseth authorized the actions taken during the operation.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a former Air Force lawyer, on Tuesday said that attacking shipwrecked survivors is a war crime. He also said that any U.S. military member taking part in such conduct, including Hegseth, should face punishment.
“I served on active duty as a JAG for four years, and then an additional 21 years in the reserves. And let me be very clear: Killing shipwrecked survivors is a war crime,” Lieu said.