Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended the September 2 double attack that killed 11 people aboard an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean, including two survivors of the initial U.S. strike. Hegseth defended the Pentagon’s actions even as he continued to deny reports he issued a verbal order to kill all crew members aboard. Hegseth spoke from the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, on Saturday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “What I understood then and what I understand now, I fully support that strike. I would have made the same call myself. Those who were involved in 20 years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan or elsewhere know that reattacks and restrikes of combatants on the battlefield happen often.”
Hegseth also refused to say whether the Pentagon would release video showing the follow-up attack on September 2. That’s despite President Trump’s statement last Wednesday that “whatever they have we’ll certainly release, no problem.” Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that Admiral Frank Bradley told lawmakers last week that the alleged drug boat on September 2 planned to link up with another, larger vessel that was bound not for the United States but for Suriname. On Friday, Amnesty International said the focus on the September 2 “double-tap” strike had obscured the fact that all of the strikes have been illegal under domestic and international law. Amnesty wrote, “All of them constitute murder because none of the victims, whether or not they were smuggling illegal narcotics, posed an imminent threat to life.” The Pentagon says it has carried out 22 strikes, killing at least 87 people.
Leave a Reply