U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, is vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” following reports that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military “to kill everybody” on an alleged drug boat.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that, after a strike on the alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September, members of SEAL Team 6 saw two survivors who were clinging to the wreckage. To comply with Hegseth’s orders, the commander ordered a second strike to kill the survivors, the Post reported.
“The Committee is aware of recent news reports—and the Department of Defense’s initial response—regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Wicker said in a statement with U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
Though a frequent ally of President Trump, Wicker has been more willing to break with the administration recently, including criticizing what he referred to as Trump’s “so-called ‘peace plan'” for Ukraine that largely favors Russia.
Hegseth has described the Post’s reporting as “fake news,” a common refrain in the Trump administration to negative news.
“As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’ The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” he said.
The strike was among 20 that the Trump administration has ordered on boats that officials claim are transporting drugs in recent months, with at least 80 people killed in the strikes so far.
NBC News reported on Nov. 19 that a top military lawyer raised concerns about the legality of the boat strikes, arguing they could amount to extrajudicial killings, but that administration officials overruled him.
The Department of Defense Law of War Manual says that members of the armed services have a duty “to refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit violations of the law of war,” and cites firing upon shipwrecked people as an example.
“The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal,” Section 18.3.2.1 says. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
Last week, Hegseth said he was investigating U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and military veteran who served as a fighter pilot, after the senator took part in a video reminding service members that they have a duty to refuse illegal orders. The defense secretary threatened to recall Kelly to active duty and possibly court-martial him for his remarks.