NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Admiral Mitch Bradley confirmed to lawmakers that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not order all survivors of counter-narcotics strikes to be killed — even as they had mixed opinions on whether the so-called “double tap” strike was justified.
An initial Washington Post report had claimed that Hegseth ordered those in charge of the counternarcotics strikes to “kill them all,” leading Bradley to interpret this as orders to kill remaining survivors.
“The Admiral confirmed that there had not been a kill them all order and that there was not an order to grant no quarter,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with the admiral.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, not to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said.
SENATE REPUBLICANS BLOCK BIPARTISAN EFFORT TO HALT MILITARY ACTION, DRUG BOAT STRIKES IN THE CARIBBEAN
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, left, and Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, right. Hegseth wrote on X that “Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support,” and, “I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.” (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images; USSOCOM)
Still, he said the full video footage of the Sept. 2 strikes showed that the two survivors were “shipwrecked sailors.”
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service. You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States,” Himes went on. “Now there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in the position to continue their mission in any way.”
Democrats and Republicans seemed to have strikingly different…
