{"id":168777,"date":"2025-12-05T02:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/168777\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T02:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:49:09","slug":"admiral-says-there-was-no-kill-them-all-order-in-double-tap-boat-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/168777\/","title":{"rendered":"Admiral says there was no ‘kill them all’ order in double-tap boat strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Navy admiral told lawmakers Friday that there was no \u201ckill them all\u201d order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth but grave questions and concerns remain as Congress scrutinises an attack that killed two survivors<\/a> of an initial strike on an alleged drug boat in international waters near Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Adm Frank \u201cMitch\u201d Bradley was “very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all\u201d, said Senator Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, as he exited a classified briefing.<\/p>\n

While the Republican Cotton, defended the attack, Democrats who were also briefed and saw video of the survivors being killed questioned the Trump administration\u2019s rationale<\/a> and said the incident was deeply concerning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,\u201d said Washington Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Smith, who is demanding further investigation, said the survivors were \u201cbasically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bradley was joined at the Capitol by General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for briefings at a potentially crucial moment in the unfolding congressional investigation into how Hegseth handled the operation. There are questions about whether the strike may have violated the law.<\/p>\n

Congressional investigation gets underway<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The September 2 attack was part of a wave of strikes by the US military against suspected drug boats. (Source: Donald Trump\/Truth Social)<\/p>\n

Lawmakers want a full accounting after The Washington Post reported that Bradley, on September 2, ordered an attack on the survivors to comply with a directive from Hegseth<\/a> to \u201ckill everybody\u201d. Legal experts say the attack amounts to a crime if the survivors were targeted.<\/p>\n

Cotton said that from watching the video, he \u201csaw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight\u201d.<\/p>\n

Connecticut Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, described the survivors’ state differently. \u201cYou have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, were killed by the United States,” he said.<\/p>\n

Underpinning President Donald Trump’s campaign against suspected traffickers is his argument that drug cartels amount to armed combatants because their cargo poses a threat to American lives.<\/p>\n

Smith acknowledged there was likely cocaine on the boat, but he objects to the Republican administration\u2019s rationale for continued attacks on alleged drug runners who may or may not be heading to the United States. \u201cThat\u2019s really the core of the problem with all of this,\u201d he said. \u201cThat incredibly broad definition, I think, is what sets in motion all of these problems about using lethal force and using the military.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cotton said it was \u201cgratifying\u201d that the US military was taking \u201cthe battle\u201d to cartels. Other lawmakers, including a handful of Republicans, worry that the campaign is pushing against the bounds of laws that govern armed conflict.<\/p>\n

Among those also briefed were the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees and the Intelligence Committee in each chamber. Several of the lawmakers in the briefings declined to comment as they exited.<\/p>\n

Democrats are demanding the release of the full video of the September 2 attack, as well as written records of the orders and any directives from Hegseth. Republicans, who control the national security committees, have not publicly called for those documents, but have pledged a thorough review.<\/p>\n

Who is Adm Bradley?<\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

US Navy Admiral Frank M Bradley walks to a meeting with senators on Capitol Hill, Thursday, December 4, 2025, in Washington. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

At the time of the attack, Bradley was the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, overseeing coordinated operations between the military’s elite special operations units out of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. About a month after the strike, he was promoted to commander of US Special Operations Command.<\/p>\n

His military career, spanning more than three decades, was mostly spent serving in the elite Navy SEALs and commanding joint operations. He was among the first special forces officers to deploy to Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. His latest promotion to admiral was approved by unanimous voice vote in the Senate this year, and Democratic and Republican senators praised his record.<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Thom Tillis has described Bradley as among those who are \u201crock solid\u201d and \u201cthe most extraordinary people that have ever served in the military\u201d.<\/p>\n

But lawmakers like Tillis have also made it clear they expect a reckoning if it is found that survivors were targeted. \u201cAnybody in the chain of command that was responsible for it, that had vision of it, needs to be held accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What else are lawmakers seeking?<\/p>\n

The scope of the investigation is unclear, but there is other documentation of the strike that could fill in what happened. Obtaining that information, though, will largely depend on action from Republican lawmakers \u2014 a potentially painful prospect for them if it puts them at odds with the president.<\/p>\n

Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he and the Senate Armed Services Committee chair, GOP Senator Roger Wicker, have formally requested the executive orders authorising the operations and the complete videos from the strikes. They are also seeking the intelligence that identified the vessels as legitimate targets, the rules of engagement for the attacks and any criteria used to determine who was a combatant and who was a civilian.<\/p>\n

Republican lawmakers who are close to Trump have sought to defend Hegseth.<\/p>\n

More than 80 people have been killed in the series of strikes that started in September.<\/p>\n

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said it was clear that Hegseth is responsible, even if the defense secretary did not explicitly order a second attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe may not have been in the room, but he was in the loop,\u201d Blumenthal said. \u201cAnd it was his order that was instrumental and foreseeably resulted in the deaths of these survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Navy admiral told lawmakers Friday that there was no \u201ckill them all\u201d order from Defense Secretary Pete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28708,65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-168777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-central-south-america","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-north-america","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-us-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}