US defence chief says he did not see survivors before follow-up boat strike | Military News

US Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth defended the controversial second attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has denied seeing any survivors of a military attack on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea in September, ahead of a second deadly attack that has prompted calls for a possible war crimes investigation.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Hegseth said he watched the initial attack on September 2 in real time, but did not see the controversial follow-up attack.

“As you can imagine, at the War Department, we have a lot of things to do, so I didn’t stop there… I moved on to my next meeting,” Hegseth said at the meeting chaired by President Donald Trump. The Trump administration is calling the Defense Department a war department, although the president insists he is a peacemaker who has brokered numerous ceasefire agreements.

Hegseth said Admiral Frank Bradley, who heads special operations in the U.S. Army and was the mission commander for the September 2 attacks, had made “the right call” to launch a second attack and “eliminate the threat.”

“I personally did not see any survivors,” Hegseth said, adding that the scene of the attack was obscured by fire and smoke.

“It’s called the fog of war.”

Hegseth said the Trump administration has fully supported Bradley and empowered commanders to “work hard in the dark of night on behalf of the American people.”

Hegseth’s comments come amid growing demands for accountability over the double-tap strike, which Democratic lawmakers and legal scholars have condemned as a potential war crime.

U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen said on X, referring to Hegseth’s previous career as a host on Fox News, “The secret talk show host may be experiencing the ‘fog of war,’ but that doesn’t change the fact that this was an extrajudicial killing that amounted to murder or a war crime.”

“One thing is clear: Pete Hegseth is unfit to serve. He must resign.”

Scrutiny of Hegseth’s role has intensified since The Washington Post reported last week that military commanders staged a second attack on two survivors of the shipwreck for following their instructions that no one would be left alive.

Hegseth criticized the Washington Post report, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter as “fake news”, “fabricated” and “inflammatory”.

The Pentagon’s own manual on the rules of war described orders to fire on survivors of damaged ships as “blatantly illegal”.

The Trump administration has attacked at least 22 ships in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific as part of a controversial military campaign against alleged drug traffickers.

At least 83 people have been killed in the attacks, which many legal scholars say amount to extrajudicial killings and are illegal under international law.

The Trump administration has so far not made public any evidence to support its claims that the boats were carrying drugs, headed to the US, or that they were commanded by members of banned cartels.