by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News December 4, 2025
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not order all survivors of a counter-narcotics strike to be killed, Adm. Mitch Bradley told Congress in closed-door briefings on Thursday.
The Sept. 2 attack against an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean killed what the Pentagon said were 11 “narco-terrorists.”
A report by The Washington Post claimed that Hegseth ordered those in charge of the strikes to “kill them all,” leading Bradley to interpret this as orders to kill remaining survivors.
“Adm. 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 said.
“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 of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with the admiral.
Hegseth has said he viewed the initial strike in real time, but was not present to view the second strike. He’s said he had no involvement in the decision to call for a second strike but stands by Bradley’s decision.
Cotton said video of the strikes showed the survivors “trying to flip their boat back over and continue their mission.”
Democrats had a different view of the video of the counter-narcotics strike.
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, said: “I think it’d be hard to watch the series of videos and not be troubled by it.”
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said: “I am deeply disturbed by what I saw this morning. The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of the Sept. 2 strike.”
Arkansas Republican Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, slammed Democrats who claimed they were “troubled” by the video:
“Those who appear ‘troubled’ by videos of military strikes on designated terrorists have clearly never seen the Obama-ordered strikes, or, for that matter, those of any other administration over recent decades. I am deeply concerned by the public statements made by others that seek to ignore the realities of targeting terrorists to score political points. I call upon them to remember their own silence as our forces conducted identical strikes for years — killing terrorists and destroying military objectives the same as in this strike — and ask themselves why they would seek to attack our forces today.”
Cotton added: “There is [another] example where survivors actually were shipwrecked and distressed and not trying to continue on their mission, and they were treated as they should be, as noncombatants. They were picked up by U.S. forces. It’s just an example of how, of course, our military always obeys the laws of war. Our military also acts with an appropriate, lawful authority to target these narco-terrorists.”
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