(NewsNation) — A Navy admiral who oversaw U.S. military strikes on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean told lawmakers Thursday there was never a “kill them all” order, but a video of the attack left grave questions as Congress scrutinizes the mission that killed two survivors.
Navy Adm. Frank Bradley testified on Capitol Hill as lawmakers investigate a report that on Sept. 2, he ordered a follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat, killing survivors, to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s demands.
According to a video of the attack shown to lawmakers and described to Reuters by two sources familiar with the footage, an airburst munition exploded over a suspected drug boat carrying 11 crew members. After the smoke cleared, two survivors clung to the wreckage and spent an hour trying to flip the capsized boat. They appeared shirtless, unarmed and without communication equipment.
Sources told Reuters that Bradley, who was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command at the time, concluded the wreckage likely stayed afloat by the cocaine onboard and could drift long enough to be recovered. Bradley reportedly authorized a second strike to neutralize the threat. The sources said the video later showed three additional munitions fired at the damaged vessel.
Both the White House and Hegseth have denied he issued an order to “kill everybody,” despite earlier reporting suggesting otherwise.
Sen. Tom Cotton defends military operation
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised military leaders, declaring the mission “lawful” and the strikes as “justified and righteous.”
“The first strike, the second strike and the third and the fourth strike on Sept. 2 were entirely lawful and needful and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do,” Cotton told reporters after the classified session.
He said Bradley and Hegseth did exactly what was expected of them.
Cotton also argued that following the first strike that killed nine alleged drug traffickers, the two survivors tried to flip the boat and continue with their mission.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat — loaded with drugs — bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight and potentially, give them all the context we’ve heard of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their cargo and recover those narco-terrorists,” he said.
Lawmakers disturbed by video of follow-up strike
Democratic lawmakers had a decidedly different response after viewing the video Thursday.
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the evidence clearly showed that U.S. forces had targeted survivors who posed no threat to American security. He characterized the footage as “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“I reviewed the video, and it’s deeply, deeply troubling,” Himes said. “The fact is that we killed two people who were in deep distress and had neither the means nor obviously the intent to continue their mission.”
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said he was “deeply disturbed” and urged the Defense Department to release the video publicly.
The Defense Department’s Law of War manual forbids attacks on combatants who are incapacitated, unconscious or shipwrecked, as long as they abstain from hostilities and do not attempt to escape. The manual cites firing upon shipwreck survivors as an example of a “clearly illegal” order that should be refused.
The U.S. has framed the boat strikes as a war with drug cartels, calling them armed groups, and has accused them of carrying drugs to the United States to kill Americans.
Reuters and The Hill contributed to this report.