Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has vehemently dismissed allegations suggesting that he commanded U.S. service members to execute a second assault on a supposed drug-laden vessel, after an initial attack left two survivors. Experts have raised concerns that this action might constitute war crimes, a claim Hegseth firmly denies.
“As per usual, the fake news is propagating fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reports to disparage our remarkable warriors who are committed to safeguarding our homeland,” Hegseth stated on X, expressing his frustration on Friday night.
Hegseth’s remarks are a direct response to an explosive report from The Washington Post, which delved into a September 2 incident involving a suspected drug transport vessel in the Caribbean Sea.
The Post’s Friday publication alleges that Hegseth, formerly a Fox News host, gave a verbal command to the special operations commander responsible for the strike, instructing them to “kill everybody” onboard the vessel.
Sources revealed to the Post that the initial missile attack, which occurred off the coast of Trinidad, struck the vessel and engulfed it in flames. Although commanders observed the vessel burning through a live drone feed for several minutes, they were taken aback when two survivors were spotted clinging to the burning debris.
In an attempt to adhere to Hegseth’s controversial directive, the special operations commander reportedly initiated a secondary strike, resulting in the fatality of the remaining crew and elevating the death toll to 11.
Sources familiar with the matter also confirmed the account to CNN.
Reports of the attack raised concerns about the constitutionality of the strikes, with some experts saying the alleged “double-tap” may violate the law of armed conflict, which forbids targeting an enemy combatant who’s out of the fight due to injury or surrender.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who shared the story about Hegseth’s alleged directive, accused the defense secretary of knowingly giving “illegal orders to murder people.”
While Hegseth did not expressly deny that a second attack killed survivors on the boat, he insisted the “current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict — and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”
Since Sept. 2 — the date of the first reported airstrike on what the Trump administration calls “narco-terrorists” — more than 80 alleged drug smugglers have been killed in at least 22 attacks in both the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific oceans.
In his response — which included a paragraph criticizing former President Biden for his “kid gloves approach” toward “narco-terrorists” — Hegseth stressed that every killed trafficker is “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.” The administration, however, has yet to publicly release evidence that the boats were carrying narcotics or of the alleged traffickers’ affiliations with terrorist groups.
“These highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes’” designed to “stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” Hegseth wrote. “The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narco-terrorists. Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.”
Hegseth’s rebuttal came shortly after President Trump announced he would issue a “full and complete pardon” to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who’s currently serving a 45-year sentence at a federal prison in West Virginia for drug trafficking and weapons convictions.
“[Hernandez] has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” Trump said of the ultra-conservative, disgraced politician.
