US lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration for answers over military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug vessels, following reports that a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors of an initial attack.
The Republican-led committees that oversee the Pentagon have vowed to carry out “vigorous oversight” of attacks by US ships in the Caribbean in the wake of the report.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that a U.S. attack on a ship on September 2 left two survivors, but a second attack was carried out to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to “kill everyone” on board.
Hegseth denounced the report as “fake news” and President Donald Trump said he believed her “100%.”
The United States has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal attacks against suspected drug trafficking vessels in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.
More than 80 people have died since the beginning of September.
The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defense by destroying ships carrying illicit drugs to the United States.
In its report Friday, The Washington Post wrote that Secretary Hegseth “gave a spoken directive” to “kill everyone” aboard one of those vessels, and a Special Operations commander overseeing the operation “ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions.”
Republican and Democratic lawmakers appearing on Sunday talk shows said they supported congressional reviews of U.S. military strikes on vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean.
The leaders said they did not know whether the Washington Post report was true, but said targeting survivors of an initial missile attack presented significant legal concerns.
“This rises to the level of a war crime if true,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said on CBS Face the Nation.
Republican Rep. Mike Turner said Congress had no information that the next attack had occurred.
“Obviously, if that were to happen, it would be very serious and I agree that it would be an illegal act,” Turner, former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told CBS.
The comments follow the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee’s announcement Friday that they planned to conduct “vigorous oversight” of the attacks.
“The Committee is aware of recent news – and the Department of Defense’s initial response – regarding alleged follow-on attacks on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker, and his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Jack Reed, said in a statement.
“The Committee has directed investigations to the Department and we will conduct vigorous oversight to determine the facts surrounding these circumstances,” they said.
The House Armed Services Committee also followed suit, saying they were “taking bipartisan steps to assemble a complete accounting of the operation in question.”
In a post on X, Hegseth rejected the accusation, calling it “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory.” He wrote that the series of attacks on ships were “legal under American and international law.”
“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a designated terrorist organization,” he wrote.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, President Trump defended his defense secretary, saying, “He said he didn’t say that. And I believe him 100%.”
Trump said the administration will “look into” the matter, adding that he “wouldn’t have wanted that, not even a second attack.”
On Sunday, Venezuela’s National Assembly condemned the attacks on the ships and promised to carry out a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into allegations of a second attack that allegedly killed two survivors.
The Venezuelan government has accused the United States of stoking tensions in the region, with the goal of overthrowing the government.
The United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but legal advisers to the US military have previously said that the United States should “act consistently with its provisions.”
Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with ships operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this that allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot chase”, in which a ship is pursued from a country’s waters to the high seas.
“Force can be used to stop a ship, but generally it should be non-lethal measures,” Professor Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast recently told BBC Verify.
