{"id":296504,"date":"2025-12-03T09:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/296504\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T09:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:53:08","slug":"hegseth-says-he-did-not-see-survivors-before-second-drug-boat-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/296504\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth says he did not see survivors before second drug boat strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2025\/11\/28\/hegseth-kill-them-all-survivors-boat-strike\/\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Washington Post first reported details, external<\/a> about the second strike, which has led to concern from both Democrat and Republican lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In response to a reporter&#8217;s question during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Hegseth said that he watched the first strike &#8220;live&#8221; but quickly moved on to another meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I did not personally see survivors,&#8221; Hegseth said of the first strike. &#8220;That thing was on fire and it exploded&#8230; you can&#8217;t see anything. This is called the fog of war.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added that he learned of Admiral Bradley&#8217;s &#8220;correct decision&#8221; to sink the boat &#8220;a couple of hours later&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We have his back,&#8221; Hegseth said of Bradley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">President Trump, for his part, also defended Adm Bradley, although he distanced himself from his decision to strike the vessel a second time, saying that &#8220;we didn&#8217;t know about&#8221; the follow-on strike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And I can say this: I want those boats taken out,&#8221; Trump added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More than 80 people have been killed in a wave of similar strikes across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since early September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the strikes as a necessary self-defence measure to save American lives from illicit drugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Post first reported details, external about the second strike, which has led to concern from both&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-296504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}