Hegseth says he ‘didn’t stick around’ for second strike on alleged drug boat
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that he did not “stick around” to see the second U.S. military strike in early September against an alleged drug-trafficking boat that killed two survivors 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 told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
A “couple” hours later, Hegseth said he learned that Adm. Frank Bradley made the decision to carry out the second strike on the boat.
That second strike is now simmering as a Washington controversy, with lawmakers asking whether it should have been carried out to kill survivors of the first strike, and whether it was a war crime.
Both strikes were part of an operation that the Trump administration says killed 11 “narco-terrorists” on Sept. 2., and Hegseth again on Tuesday defended Bradley, the Navy admiral who serves as commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and carried out the second strike.
“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat,” Hegseth said. “And it was the right call. We have his back.”
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the two survivors were left clinging to the wreckage after the first U.S. military strike, prompting the commander in charge to order a second blow to comply with Hegseth’s directive.
The White House confirmed on Monday that Hegseth authorized the Sept. 2 strike and that Bradley, who oversaw the operation, was the commander who ordered the second attack that killed the two remaining survivors in the Caribbean Sea.
Bradley will be in Congress on Thursday to brief lawmakers about the Sept. 2 strike, the first attack that was disclosed by the Trump administration its amid military operations against alleged drug-smuggling boats, as some have expressed concerns and as top committees overseeing the Defense Department said they will look into the mission.
On Tuesday, Hegseth also said that he did not see the survivors after the initial strike because the vessel was on fire.
“It was exploded in fire or smoke. You can’t see anything,” the Pentagon head said. “You got digital … this is called the fog of war.”
Hegseth then went on to attack the media, including the Post over the initial story about the strikes.
The scrutiny over the Sept. 2 attack comes as the Trump administration has carried out at least 21 strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in both the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 83 people so far, whom U.S. officials have called “narco-terrorists.”
The latest strike took place on Nov. 15, with the U.S. military killing three alleged “narco-terrorists” in the eastern Pacific. Hegseth indicated that the administration has not carried out an attack since.
“We’ve had a bit of a pause because it’s hard to find boats to strike right now, which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter, not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse and repeat approach of previous administrations,” Hegseth said on Tuesday.
Democrats have called on Hegseth to resign and alleged the Sept. 2 operation constituted a war crime. Others within the party are calling on the Pentagon head to sit in for a public hearing.
“If Hegseth believes his actions were lawful, he should not be afraid to explain himself to Congress in full view of the nation, instead of burying this potentially criminal activity in closed-door meetings,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), who is on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Tuesday.
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