Calls Grow For US Defence Secretary To Testify After Follow-Up Boat Strike Kills Two Survivors

Last Updated:December 02, 2025, 23:58 IST

The WSJ urges Pete Hegseth to testify on the second strike ordered by Adm. Frank Bradley in Caribbean, sparking Congress debate over war crimes and Trump administration backlash.

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth (Image: AP/File)

Democrats and Republicans in Congress have raised questions about whether the recent strikes on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean constituted a war crime.. There have also been calls for US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth to testify under oath about the second strike killing the survivors of the first strike.

According to The Hill, the second strike, ordered by Adm. Frank Bradley, reportedly killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel after an initial strike.

The second strike has raised questions among Democrats and Republicans in Congress whether it constituted a war crime.

“The charge of deliberately killing the defenseless is serious enough to warrant a close look from Congress," the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote in an editorial published Tuesday. “That includes Mr. Hegseth giving an account under oath. The Administration so far seems to think it can ride out the story with ritual denunciations of the media."

President Donald Trump’s administration has been facing backlash over the strikes carried out since September.

Meanwhile, the White House has denied the Post’s account that Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everybody" on the boat prior to the strikes.

The WSJ said: “Our view is that the Commander in Chief deserves legal latitude as part of his constitutional war powers." “But that doesn’t extend to shooting the wounded in violation of U.S. and international rules of war. The Pentagon’s own law of war manual prohibits ‘hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors’," it said.

In response, the Department of Defence said the strikes are part of Trump’s plan to fight against drug trafficking.

On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated."

The Hill quoted Leavitt defending the strikes and Bradley’s actions amid questions about whether he authorized both strikes.

“The President has the right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America, if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate, which is what they are doing," she said.

News world Calls Grow For US Defence Secretary To Testify After Follow-Up Boat Strike Kills Two Survivors

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