WASHINGTON ― Congressional Republicans expressed concern about U.S. military actions in the Caribbean, pledging to investigate multiple strikes on one suspected Venezuelan drug boat off the coast of Trinidad that killed defenseless survivors.
“The accusations are really serious, so we need to make sure we have proper oversight. We need full accountability and transparency,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a veteran, said in an interview with HuffPost.
“It’s defenseless people,” noted Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.). “You get in combat, somebody surrenders, and as they’re surrendering, you just don’t put a firing squad up there and just shoot them. I mean, don’t do that.”
The Washington Post reported over the weekend that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everybody” in a pair of Sept. 2 airstrikes on an alleged drug trafficking boat that had 11 people on board, the first vessel hit in the Trump administration’s growing military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. The second strike killed two survivors clinging to the burning wreckage of the boat, which Democrats and military experts have called a possible war crime.
Hegseth said on Tuesday that he watched the boat strike on a live video feed but didn’t stay for the entire event. He said U.S. Navy Admiral Frank Bradley made the call to “sink the boat and eliminate the threat.”
