U.S. lawmakers on Thursday viewed video footage of a September 2 military strike on an alleged drug‑smuggling boat near Venezuela, intensifying a partisan dispute over whether a follow‑up attack that killed two survivors complied with the laws of war. Democrats described the images as deeply troubling and potentially unlawful, while Republicans argued the survivors remained legitimate targets.
On September 2, U.S. forces carried out an airstrike on a boat suspected of carrying drugs toward the United States in the Caribbean, in international waters near Venezuela. The mission was overseen by Navy Admiral Frank "Mitch" Bradley, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, and involved an initial strike followed by a second one that killed two survivors, according to multiple accounts from U.S. officials and lawmakers who have been briefed on the operation.
Bradley and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed members of both the House and Senate behind closed doors on Thursday, where lawmakers watched previously unreleased video of the incident, according to Reuters and other outlets.
Democrats emerged from the briefings expressing strong concerns about the follow‑up strike. Representative Jim Himes, D‑Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the imagery "one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service," Reuters reports. He said the footage showed "two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States." Himes and other critics have pointed to the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual, which says attacks on shipwrecked or otherwise incapacitated persons are prohibited.
Senator Jack Reed, D‑R.I., the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, also raised "serious questions about the legality of all the strikes," according to NPR and other briefings summaries. Reed warned that the United States must insist on strict adherence to the rules of war, arguing that failure to do so could endanger U.S. troops if adversaries follow a lower standard.
Republicans offered a sharply different interpretation. Senator Tom Cotton, R‑Ark., who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after viewing the footage that it showed "two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight," according to an account published by Air Force Times and the Associated Press. Cotton described multiple strikes occurring minutes apart and argued they were "entirely lawful" because the survivors were still participating in hostile activity.
Newly aired intelligence, first reported by ABC News and summarized by the Daily Wire, has added to the dispute. Citing an anonymous source familiar with the incident, ABC reported that after the initial strike the two survivors climbed back onto the disabled boat, appeared to be salvaging drugs and were believed to be in potential communication with others in their network. On that account, a judge advocate general, or JAG, officer was providing legal advice in real time, and the survivors were deemed "still in the fight" and therefore valid targets.
The White House has said President Donald Trump did not order the second strike. In public comments this week, Trump has said he was not aware of the follow‑up attack when it occurred and has portrayed the broader campaign against narcotics traffickers as lifesaving, claiming that "every boat we knock out" spares thousands of American lives, according to reporting from multiple outlets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended the overall operation while denying he issued a direct order to kill all survivors. The Washington Post previously reported that Hegseth told subordinates there should be no survivors from the September 2 strike, a claim he has rejected. According to statements from the Pentagon and the White House cited by Reuters, CBS News and Al Jazeera, Hegseth authorized Bradley to conduct the September 2 "kinetic strikes," while officials say the decision to carry out the second strike was Bradley’s.
Bradley told lawmakers on Thursday that he received no "kill them all" order from Hegseth, according to Cotton’s account to reporters. Congressional officials said Bradley emphasized he was operating under standing authorities to ensure the suspected narco‑terrorist vessel and its cargo were destroyed.
The administration has framed the mission as part of a wider campaign that treats certain drug‑smuggling organizations as narco‑terrorist groups subject to lethal targeting under the laws of war, Reuters reports. Legal scholars and some lawmakers have questioned both that rationale and the handling of the second strike, warning it could constitute an unlawful attack on shipwrecked persons and potentially amount to a war crime.
Democrats and some Republicans have demanded fuller transparency. Lawmakers from both parties have requested that the administration provide all audio, video, and legal justifications related to the operation. Several Democrats, including Reed and Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, have urged that at least portions of the video be made public so the American people can assess the government’s use of force.
The controversy over the September 2 operation is unfolding as Hegseth faces separate scrutiny for using the encrypted messaging app Signal on a personal device to share sensitive details about military actions in Yemen, according to a Defense Department inspector general report described by Reuters and other outlets. Together, the disputes have intensified questions on Capitol Hill about the administration’s conduct of its expanding campaign against maritime drug traffickers and its adherence to U.S. and international law.
