Key Points
- Defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the US has “only just begun” targeting alleged drug-trafficking vessels.
- The US military has been accused of war crimes after an earlier attack included a second strike on a disabled boat.
- The White House distanced Hegseth from the re-strike decision, placing responsibility on admiral Frank Bradley.
The United States has "only just begun" targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats, defence secretary Pete Hegseth insisted, despite a growing outcry over strikes that critics say amount to extrajudicial killings.
Hegseth and President Donald Trump's administration have come under fire, particularly over an incident in which US forces launched a follow-up strike on the wreckage of a vessel that had already been hit, reportedly killing two survivors.
Both the White House and Pentagon have sought to distance Hegseth from that decision — which some US politicians have said could be a war crime — instead pinning the blame on the admiral who directly oversaw the operation.
"We've only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean, because they've been poisoning the American people," Hegseth said during a Tuesday cabinet meeting.
"We've had a bit of a pause because it's hard to find boats to strike right now — which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter," Hegseth said.
The Pentagon chief said he watched the first strike but "did not personally see survivors," while also defending the second attack, saying it was the "correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat".
Trump's administration insists it is effectively at war with alleged "narco-terrorists" and began carrying out strikes in early September on vessels it says were transporting drugs — a campaign that has so far killed 83 people. They have failed to provide evidence of drug trafficking allegations.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, said the strikes “violate international human rights law” and must stop immediately.
Earlier on Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson insisted that the strikes were legal.
The operations "are lawful under both US and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict," she told a news conference.
Wilson also repeated the White House's assertion that admiral Frank Bradley — who now leads US Special Operations Command — made "the decision to re-strike the narco-terrorist vessel," saying the senior navy officer was "operating under clear and long-standing authorities to ensure the boat was destroyed".
"Any follow-on strikes like those which were directed by admiral Bradley, the secretary 100 per cent agrees with," she added.
Wilson spoke to a friendly audience, with dozens of journalists who refused to sign a new restrictive Pentagon media policy earlier in the year barred from the event.
The follow-up strike that killed survivors took place on 2 September and would appear to run afoul of the Pentagon's own Law of War manual, which states that "orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal."
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