WASHINGTON — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said he didn’t order the second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat — but he would have, in new comments about the decision to target survivors of a Sept. 2 US attack.
“I fully support that strike,” Hegseth said during his remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday. “I would have made the same call myself.”
Last week, House and Senate lawmakers were briefed in a classified setting by Admiral Frank Bradley about the strikes. Democrats said they came away horrified by what they learned, while Republicans in the briefing largely stood by Hegseth.
President Trump has supported releasing footage of the strikes, but Hegseth was noncommittal during a question-and-answer session at the Reagan National Defense Forum.
“We’re reviewing it right now to make sure sources, methods, I mean, it’s an ongoing operation, [tactics, techniques and procedures], we’ve got operators out there doing this right now,” Hegseth explained, when asked by Fox News’s Lucas Tomlinson.
The Sept. 2 attack was the first of 22 known attacks on alleged drug vessels by the Trump administration.
The Pentagon says Braldey, a Navy SEAL, was the one who ordered the second strike on the boat — which Democrats claim could amount to a war crime.
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