The Senate on Wednesday passed Congress’s $900 billion defense policy bill, advancing a bipartisan effort to force the Pentagon to disclose footage of a controversial military strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat near Venezuela.
The legislation advanced by a vote of 77 to 20. It cleared the House last week, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law.
A measure in the bill withholds 25 percent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until he provides Congress with video of the Sept. 2 operation and other materials related to the Trump administration’s unprecedented campaign against Latin American narcotics traffickers. Eleven people were killed in that attack, including two men who survived a U.S. initial strike on their vessel.
The footage is seen as essential evidence as lawmakers seek to determine whether military officials violated the law of armed conflict by targeting the boat’s wreckage with survivors present. Military law grants special protection to people who are deemed “shipwrecked,” meaning they are in peril and not engaging in hostilities. The commander who oversaw the operation has sought to defend his decision to order the subsequent strike that killed the two survivors.
Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where they briefed the House and Senate on the Sept. 2 attack and the administration’s broader counternarcotics campaign. To date, U.S. forces have targeted 25 boats suspected of ferrying illicit drugs, killing 95 people, according to the Trump administration’s public disclosures.
In brief remarks to reporters, Hegseth said he has ruled out releasing the Sept. 2 video, citing a need to protect U.S. military secrets. Members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees viewed the footage Wednesday and spoke with Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who led the operation.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) largely focuses on making it easier for the Pentagon to buy weapons, eliminating bureaucracy that Republicans and Democrats agree has become an unacceptable obstacle amid an arms race with Russia and China.
But the legislation also represents the GOP-controlled Congress asserting its authority over U.S. defense policy, after some Republicans have complained that the Pentagon under Hegseth has withheld critical information all year. The bill would force the Defense Department to consult with lawmakers before withdrawing troops from South Korea and Europe and before restructuring military commands around the world.
The legislation includes other areas of bipartisan pushback against the Trump administration, including measures that extend security aid to Ukraine and the Baltic nations that border Russia. The Pentagon had intended to cancel the initiatives.
In a win for lawmakers skeptical of open-ended U.S. military commitments, the bill repeals decades old legislation authorizing the use of military force during the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
It also includes a nearly 4 percent pay raise for service members.
Still, while many of the most partisan parts of the bill were cut away during negotiations between the House and Senate, some Democrats nonetheless reacted with frustration at parts of the final text. In particular, bipartisan provisions that would have restored the work of a commission tasked with renaming military bases that had once honored the Confederacy were struck from the final bill.
correctionA previous version of this article stated incorrectly that lawmakers met virtually Wednesday with Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who oversaw a controversial military strike in September. Bradley was on Capitol Hill for the meeting. The article has been corrected.
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