Top military officers showed senior members of Congress a video of a Sept. 2 attack on a boat suspected of carrying drugs, including a follow-up strike that has been at the center of a growing debate over the Trump administration’s campaign.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Frank M. Bradley, a top Special Operations commander who oversaw the attack, met with members of Congress to discuss the campaign and defend the decision to launch a second strike that killed survivors of the first missile.
The military officers briefed the Republican chairmen and senior Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, and met with the top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee, both behind closed doors.
Admiral Bradley in one briefing denied the allegation that U.S. forces were directed to treat anyone encountered at sea as a threat requiring lethal force, telling lawmakers there was no order related to the survivors to “kill them all” or “grant no quarter,” Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters after the briefing.
But Mr. Himes, who for years has overseen sensitive counterterrorism and covert operations, told reporters after viewing the full unedited video of the Sept. 2 attack that the footage was “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States,” he said.
Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has raised questions about the decision to attack the survivors, prompting the more robust oversight. Democrats have been highly skeptical of the campaign, arguing that all of the boat attacks amount to extrajudicial killing or even murder because Congress has not authorized an armed conflict.
But lawmakers were expected to press General Caine and Admiral Bradley on a range of questions, including about the original order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that called for the boats to be sunk, the drugs to be destroyed and the people on the boats to be killed.
The lawmakers were also expected to drill down on the military’s planning for what to do with survivors, the approval of those plans and the reasons Admiral Bradley thought that a follow-on strike was justified.
Military officials have said that the survivors were a legitimate target. Legal experts have questioned that.
The questions surrounding the Sept. 2 strike have heightened scrutiny of Mr. Hegseth and Admiral Bradley. But current and former military officers have rallied to the admiral’s defense, worried that he might be held singularly responsible for killing the survivors.
William McRaven, the retired admiral who oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, said on Thursday that while he did not know details of the strike, he had deep trust in Admiral Bradley, who he said was “one of the finest officers I ever served with.”
“In the 30 years that I have known Mitch, he has always displayed a strong moral compass, impeccable character and someone I trusted to do the right thing under even the most difficult of circumstances,” Admiral McRaven said.
Helene Cooper, Robert Jimison and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
Megan Mineiro is a Times congressional reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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