Pete Hegseth could face a possible war crimes prosecution over a claim that he ordered a second strike to kill survivors of a U.S. missile attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean.
The Pentagon chief insisted that all 11 people on board the boat should be killed, according to The Washington Post.
“The order was to kill everybody,” alleged two people with direct knowledge of the SEAL Team 6 operation targeting the waterborne drug smugglers.
Two people were reportedly clinging to the burning deck of the vessel destroyed by a U.S. rocket fired off the coast of Trinidad on September 2.
To comply with Hegseth’s order, the Special Ops commander in charge of the operation allegedly ordered a second strike and wiped out the survivors.
Two missiles reportedly hit the boat to kill those on board, and another two were fired to sink it.
A CNN report said that while Hegseth ordered the operation to ensure everyone on the boat was killed, it was not clear whether he knew there were survivors prior to the second strike.
Former military lawyer Todd Huntley, director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law, said a decision to kill all the boat’s helpless passengers “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime.”
He told the Post that killing any of the people on the boat “amounts to murder.”
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the “entire narrative is completely false.”
He added: “Ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and to protect the Homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success.”
The September strike was the first in President Donald Trump’s military campaign against narco traffickers, which has hit at least 22 boats and claimed 82 lives.
After the SEAL 6 attack, Trump posted a video on Truth Social showing the first missile and claimed there were “Narcoterrorists” from the “Tren de Aragua” cartel on board.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” he added.
Trump and his aides have claimed the killings are justified because the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with the narcos.
The Post named Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, who was overseeing the operation in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as the commander who ordered the second September 2 strike. He has now been promoted to head of U.S. Special Operations Command.
The White House was reportedly told that the follow-up strike was to sink debris from the boat so it didn’t interfere with maritime traffic and was not intended to take out survivors.
In the subsequent boat attacks, the protocols were altered to rescue any alleged traffickers if they survived the first hit.
“The idea that wreckage from one small boat in a vast ocean is a hazard to marine traffic is patently absurd, and killing survivors is blatantly illegal,” Rep. Seth Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Post. “Mark my words: It may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.”
“They’re breaking the law either way,” Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Pentagon, told CNN.
“They’re killing civilians in the first place, and then if you assume they’re combatants, it’s also unlawful—under the law of armed conflict, if somebody is ‘hors de combat’ and no longer able to fight, then they have to be treated humanely.”
Last week, Trump branded six lawmakers “traitors” after they released a video appealing to service members to refuse to carry out an “illegal order.”
The reps have since said they are being targeted for investigation by Trump administration officials.
The U.K. has stopped sharing intelligence about the movements of suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean because it believes the U.S. military action is illegal.
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