Watch: White House defends Venezuela boat strikes, says Admiral Bradley acted legally
A top US Navy commander ordered a second round of military strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, the White House has confirmed.
“Admiral (Frank) Bradley worked well within his authority and the law” in ordering the additional strike, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.
Leavitt confirmed Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the strikes but did not give an order to “kill everybody” as the Washington Post reported. The second strike was reportedly done after two people survived the initial blast and were clinging to the burning vessel.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern over the reports and vowed congressional reviews of the strikes.
“President (Donald) Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war,” Leavitt said during the Monday press briefing.
“The president has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America,” she said.
The press secretary neither confirmed the first strike left two survivors nor that the second attack was intended to kill them.
Leavitt added that Trump is meeting with his national security team in the Oval Office on Monday to discuss Venezuela, along with other matters.
Media reports that Hegseth had given the directive to kill all those on board the vessel during the 2 September strike have renewed concerns about the legality of US military strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.
In recent weeks, the US has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.
More than 80 people have been killed in the strikes since early September.
The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defence by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the US.
“The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” Hegseth wrote on X.
Hegseth spoke with members of Congress over the weekend who had expressed concerns, Leavitt said.
Hegseth had pushed back against accusations in the report on Friday, calling them “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory”.
President Trump said on Sunday he believed his defence secretary “100%”.
Over the weekend, the Senate Armed Services Committee said it had “directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances”.
Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Roger Wicker, added on Monday that the committee was planning to interview the “admiral that was in charge of the operation”. He added that it was also seeking audio and video to “see what the orders were”.
The House Armed Services Committee said it would also investigate the attack, saying it was “taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question”.
According to a statement on Monday from the Joint Chiefs of Staff – a body of the highest-ranking military officers – its chairman met members of both the House and Senate’s armed services committees over the weekend.
Discussions centred around the counter-narcoterrorism operations in the region and “the intent and legality of missions to disrupt illicit trafficking networks”, it said.
The chairman also expressed his full trust and confidence in military commanders at every level, the statement said.
The Trump administration has said its operations in the Caribbean is a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers.
The rules of engagement in such armed conflicts – as set out in the Geneva Conventions – forbid the targeting of wounded participants, saying that those participants should instead be apprehended and cared for.
Under former-President Barack Obama, the US military came under scrutiny for firing multiple rounds from drones, in a practice known as the “double tap”, that sometimes resulted in unintended casualties.
On Sunday, Venezuela’s National Assembly condemned the boat strikes and vowed to carry out a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into the accusations of a second attack that allegedly killed two survivors.
The Venezuelan government has accused the US of stoking tensions in the region, with the aim of toppling the government.
