Washington– Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday they support congressional reviews of the US military Strikes against ships suspected of drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members as part of the September 2 attack.
Lawmakers said they did not know if a Washington Post report last week was true, and some Republicans were skeptical, but said attacking survivors of an initial missile strike raises serious legal concerns.
“This amounts to a war crime if true,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia.
When Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, was asked about the subsequent strike targeting people who could no longer fight, he said Congress had no information about what happened. This was indicated by the leaders of the Armed Services Committee in both the House of Representatives and the Senate Investigations have been opened.
“Obviously if that happened, it would be very dangerous, and I agree it would be illegal,” Turner said.
Turner said there are concerns in Congress about attacks on ships that the Trump administration says are transporting drugs, but the allegations surrounding the Sept. 2 attack are “completely outside of anything that has been discussed with Congress and there is an ongoing investigation.”
The lawmakers’ comments during an appearance on a news program come as the administration steps up a campaign to combat drug trafficking into the United States. Republican President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the airspace was “over and around” Venezuela It should be considered “closed in its entirety”, an assertion that has raised further questions about American pressure Concerning Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s government accused Trump of issuing a “colonial threat” and seeking to undermine the sovereignty of the South American country.
After the newspaper’s report, Hegseth said Friday on Channel
“Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under US and international law, and all actions comply with the law of armed conflict — and are approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command,” Hegseth wrote.
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the top Democrat, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, said in a joint statement late Friday that the committee “will conduct vigorous oversight to determine the facts regarding these circumstances.”
This was followed on Saturday by the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, and the ranking Democrat, Representative Adam Smith from Washington, issuing a joint statement in which they said that the committee is committed to “providing strict oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”
“We take seriously reports of successive raids on boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Southern Command area and are taking bipartisan action to compile a full report on the operation in question,” Rogers and Smith said, referring to US Southern Command.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., was asked about the Sept. 2 attack and said Hegseth deserved a chance to introduce his team.
“We have to get to the truth,” Bacon said. “I don’t think it would be stupid enough to make this decision to say, ‘Kill everyone, kill the survivors,’ because that is a clear violation of the law of war.” “So, I’m very skeptical that he would do something like that because it goes against common sense.”
Keane and Turner appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” and Bacon also appeared on ABC’s “This Week.”