Press secretary said Adm Frank Bradley ordered the follow-up missile strike on suspected smuggling boat, contradicting reports of defence secretary’s command to ‘kill everyone’
Pete Hegseth described the veteran officer as ‘an American hero’. (Ricardo Hernadez/AP)
Pete Hegseth described the veteran officer as ‘an American hero’. Photo: AP
Karoline Leavitt said Adm Bradley ‘worked well within his authority and the law’. Photo: AP
Pentagon top brass are reportedly furious over what appears to be the Trump administration’s intention to blame a veteran naval officer for allegedly ordering a second missile strike on an alleged drug-running boat to kill two survivors of an earlier missile hit.
On Monday, the White House confirmed a report in the Washington Post that revealed that American forces killed the survivors of the initial September strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, which president Donald Trump has said was smuggling drugs for the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Adm Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the commanding officer who oversaw the mission carried out by the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, had “worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed” when ordering the follow-up attack.
Pete Hegseth described the veteran officer as ‘an American hero’. (Ricardo Hernadez/AP)
Today’s News in 90 – Wednesday, December 3
The second missile strike, which left none of the vessel’s 11 passengers alive amid the wreckage, was carried out pursuant to what the Post called a verbal order from defence secretary Pete Hegseth to “kill everyone”.
It raised alarms among House and Senate armed services committee leaders, who suggested that the “double-tap” attack aimed at survivors of a wrecked vessel could have been illegal under US and international law because targeting shipwrecked people has long been considered a textbook example of a war crime. But Ms Leavitt claimed that no such laws had been violated and said Bradley’s orders were “well within his authority and the law”.
She added that the strikes were “conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict”.
Karoline Leavitt said Adm Bradley ‘worked well within his authority and the law’. Photo: AP
Her prepared statement left Pentagon officials who spoke to the Post incensed, with one calling the press secretary’s remarks “‘protect Pete’ bullshit”.
Another accused the White House spokesperson of “throwing us, the service members, under the bus” as Congress prepares to investigate the September 2 action.
Mr Hegseth took to social media to defend Adm Bradley, a Naval Academy graduate who has spent much of his career within the secretive Seal teams and was one of the first American service members to set foot in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Writing on X, he said he stood by Adm Bradley “and the combat decisions he has made – on the September 2 mission and all others since” while calling the veteran officer “an American hero”.
But Mr Hegseth’s blame-shifting efforts may not satisfy congressional leaders who are intent on gathering more information about the attack. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters that he’d spoken with Mr Hegseth, Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen Dan Caine, and would soon speak with Adm Bradley as well.
“We’re going to find out what the true facts are,” Mr Wicker said.