Democrats urge Pentagon to release video of strike on alleged drug boat | Trump administration
US Democrats on Sunday forced the Trump administration to release video of a second attack on an allegedly inactive drug ship in the Caribbean, continuing to increase pressure on the Pentagon amid accusations that the attack was unlawful.
11 people died in the September 2 attack; These included two men killed in the ensuing attack, who were said to have been trapped under the rubble for an hour. This murder was met with intense scrutiny and war crime accusations following the Washington Post. reported defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered “them all killed.” U.S. Navy Admiral Frank Bradley, who oversaw the attack, told lawmakers Thursday there was no such order, and the Pentagon defended the legality of the attack.
Experts say the defense is legally shaky.
“If the Pentagon and our secretary of defense are so proud of what they’ve done, let the American people watch this video,” Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California, said in an interview Sunday. NBC Meet the Press.
“Let the American people see two people standing on a capsized boat, or sitting on a capsized boat, who were deliberately killed, and decide for themselves whether they’re proud of what the country has done. I can’t imagine people would be proud of that.”
Donald Trump said he had no problem releasing the video. But despite the president’s announcement, Hegseth did not commit to doing so on Saturday.
“We’re reviewing the process, and we’ll see,” he said on Saturday, adding that the Pentagon wanted to ensure sensitive information was not compromised.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut previously said the video was “one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“Two people killed by the United States, with no means of movement, their ship destroyed, are clearly in distress,” said Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
Washington state Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said Sunday that it was “pretty clear they didn’t want to release this video.”
“They don’t want people to see this because it’s very, very hard to justify,” he said in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC. This week.
“When [the survivors] They were finally taken out, they weren’t trying to flip the boat over. The boat was clearly unusable. A small portion remained capsized; bow of the boat. There were no communication devices. Of course they were unarmed.”
Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, said he personally did not oppose the release of the video.
“It’s not scary. I didn’t find it upsetting or disturbing. It looks like dozens of attacks we’ve seen on jeeps and pickup trucks in the Middle East over the years,” he said. NBC Meets the Press. “I trust Secretary Hegseth and his team to decide whether to declassify the video and release it. But again, in my opinion, there is nothing remarkable about that video.”
Cotton also defended the legality of the strike, arguing that the two men killed in the second attack were helpless.
“It doesn’t really matter what they do,” he said. “They were on that boat. That boat was still a valid target. They were not in danger on a plank of wood in the ocean like the later survivors,” he said.
