Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s alleged order to “kill” everyone aboard a suspected Venezuelan drug boat is slated to face intense oversight by the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee.
SASC chair Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, and SASC member Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, released a joint statement Friday promising “vigorous oversight” into the facts regarding a Sept. 2 drug boat strike in which the U.S. killed everyone aboard a suspected narcotics vessel, then killed the two survivors of its first attack with another missile.
“The committee is aware of recent news reports—and the Department of Defense’s initial response—regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” reads the statement.
“The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that on Sept. 2, Pete Hegseth ordered that the U.S. military kill everyone on board a boat suspected of carrying narcotics off the coast of Trinidad.
A missile struck the vessel and killed nine of the eleven people aboard the ship. When the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack realized there were two survivors in the water, he fired a second shot to comply with Hegseth’s order, killing the remaining survivors.
The order may amount to a war crime—and therefore punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or death, per the U.S.’s definition of war crimes, which can apply to U.S. nationals and armed service members.
Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer, told the Post that the attack “amounts to murder,” because Venezuela and the U.S. are not in an armed conflict.
The order to kill everyone on board “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” he said.
Hegseth, 45, brushed off the report as “fake news,” saying on X, “As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”
He also defended the legality of the attack by saying, “Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” and, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman and Senior Adviser, said on Friday, “We told the Washington Post that this entire narrative was false yesterday. These people just fabricate anonymously sourced stories out of whole cloth. Fake News is the enemy of the people.”
The protocol for future suspected drug boat strikes was altered after the Sept. 2 attack, and the military was instructed to detain any survivors.
Though the attacks have garnered bipartisan frustration, it’s unclear what the Senate Armed Services Committee could do if it concludes Hegseth’s strikes were illegal.
In the weeks following the attack, President Trump, 79, attempted to retroactively insulate those responsible from legal consequences by informing Congress that the U.S. was in a “non-international armed conflict” with “designated terrorist organizations,” and therefore those who killed suspected narcotics traffickers would be exempt from criminal prosecution.
“That’s one of the problems with the law of armed conflict — the state using force is judge, jury, and executioner,” said Huntley.
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