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Pete Hegseth has invoked the “fog of war” as the US defence secretary defended the legality of a deadly double strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea.
Hegseth’s comments on Tuesday came as Donald Trump and his administration have closed ranks in support of the Pentagon chief in the face of a growing backlash in Congress about his handling of US strikes in international waters surrounding Latin America — and fears they could constitute a war crime.
The furore over Hegseth has flared up at a particularly sensitive time for Trump as he weighs more US military action in the region, including against targets on Venezuelan soil, and whether to unseat President Nicolás Maduro.
Speaking during a televised cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump said the defence secretary was doing a “great job”, while Hegseth justified Washington’s military campaign against alleged drug boats.
“Narco-terrorists know you can’t bring drugs through the water and eventually on land if necessary, to the American people. We will eliminate that threat,” he said.
Hegseth sought to distance himself from a September attack on an alleged drug smuggling vessel that initially killed nine people but left two survivors who were subsequently hit in a follow-up strike that has been heavily criticised as a potential violation of the laws of armed conflict.
Hegseth told the cabinet members and assembled media on Tuesday that he had watched the initial strike, but did not “stick around” for the subsequent attack, which he said was ordered by Admiral Frank Bradley, head of the Joint Special Operations Command.
“I did not personally see survivors,” Hegseth said, adding that Bradley had made the “right decision”.
“The thing was on fire . . . this is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand.”
The White House confirmed on Monday that a second strike had occurred, but Trump said he still had not “gotten a lot of information, because I rely on Pete. But to me it was an attack,” he said. “I wasn’t involved. I knew they took out a boat.”
“I want those boats taken out, and, if we have to, we’ll attack on land also just like we attacked on sea,” he added.
The decision to carry out a second strike on the vessel has been sharply criticised by lawmakers from both parties, with the House and Senate armed services committees opening investigations into the attack. Some have accused Hegseth of seeking to deflect responsibility on to Bradley.
“At the Pentagon, the buck stops with the secretary of defence. Period,” said Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic senator from Michigan. “True leaders own the calls they make and take responsibility for their actions. Secretary Hegseth should release the full video of the strike and lay out publicly what happened, without throwing the uniformed military under the bus,” she added.
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday afternoon, Republican Senate majority leader John Thune said Trump was “acting under his authority as commander-in-chief” in authorising strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean. But when asked if he had full confidence in Hegseth, Thune declined to answer.
A former Fox News host and combat veteran, Hegseth has long railed against the rules and regulations imposed on US troops in battle, arguing that they have curbed their ability to wage war effectively.
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During the first Trump administration, he successfully campaigned for Trump to pardon three US service members who had been charged or convicted of alleged war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Earlier this year Hegseth was at the centre of a scandal over the sharing of sensitive details of a planned US military operation in Yemen on a Signal messaging app chat with other senior administration officials and a journalist from The Atlantic magazine, which published them.
Michael Waltz, the current US ambassador to the UN, was forced to step down as national security adviser over the leak.
“Since Signalgate back in the spring, Secretary Hegseth’s leadership has been a distraction from the critical missions of our military,” Slotkin said.