Democrats troubled by video of second strike on alleged drug boat
Navy chiefs defended a controversial drug boat strike but Democrats found new grounds to question its legality after viewing a video of the attack.
Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley in a closed-door briefing for lawmakers on Thursday (local time) defended a controversial September 2 attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. But Democrats found new grounds to question the legality of the strike after viewing a video of the attack.
Adm. Bradley told lawmakers that two men who survived an initial strike on the boat attempted to continue their drug run, making them viable legal targets, according to two defence officials. The admiral played footage of the hours-long incident, including his decision to order a follow-up strike that killed the two survivors.
After Adm. Bradley’s meetings, US Southern Command released footage of a new US attack Thursday on an alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific that it said killed four people.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, issued a joint statement condemning the Sept 2. strike and challenging Adm. Bradley’s claims that the two men were killed justifiably.
“The video we saw today showed two shipwrecked individuals who had no means to move, much less pose an immediate threat, and yet they were killed by the United States military,” they said, calling for the full, unedited footage to be publicly released.
Defence officials said the survivors were aboard the heavily damaged vessel, attempted to salvage packages of drugs and were believed to be communicating with fellow narco-traffickers via radio. But Smith said there was little evidence for the Pentagon’s claims.
“There is no way you could have looked at that video and found a lick of evidence that there were drugs anywhere around the tiny little piece of that boat that was still sticking above the surface of the water,” he said in an interview. “There was nothing, nothing to see.”
The Pentagon and the White House were in discussions Thursday about releasing the video, according to one of the defence officials.
Some Republicans defended Adm. Bradley, backing President Trump’s claim that the casualties were narco-terrorists seeking to kill Americans, not just sell an illicit product. Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the survivors were seen on video seeking to flip the boat that was “loaded with drugs, bound for the United States … so they could stay in the fight.”
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was the “target engagement authority” for the operation, a Pentagon term meaning he was responsible for approving an attack, the defence officials said. Before the operation, he outlined three goals: sink the boat, destroy the drugs and kill the alleged narco-terrorists. He determined that all 11 men on board were legitimate targets, they said. Command of the operation was given to Adm. Bradley.
Adm. Bradley told lawmakers that he hadn’t been given an order to kill all 11 men on the boat or to give no quarter to survivors, Cotton said.
The Defence Department’s Law of War manual states that people in a shipwreck — meaning a vessel can no longer operate — cannot be fired upon. Combatants in such a situation would be considered hors de combat, rendered out of action.
A still-secret Justice Department memo says the Trump administration can use legal force against drug smugglers because the narcotics they sell fund arms the traffickers could use in armed combat with the US Experts in the law-of-war criticised the argument as overly broad and heavily based on Trump’s claim that smugglers are terrorists.
“I support the decision to knock out the boats and whoever is piloting those boats” because “they are guilty of trying to kill people in our country,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “You’re going to find that this is war.”
Some experts said the fact that the boat in the attack was carrying 11 people indicated the shipment was likely not bound for the United States.
“That boat was likely moving people, and it could have also been moving some drugs, but it wasn’t going to be a major shipment,” said William Baumgartner, former judge advocate general and chief counsel for the Coast Guard. “The people are taking up the room where you could put gasoline” that would be needed to reach a major transit point like the Dominican Republic, he said.
Himes, speaking about the video, said after the briefing “what I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
The Wall St Journal
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