A Democratic congressman described an unedited video of an extrajudicial military strike that killed two survivors in the Caribbean as “one of the most troubling scenes” he’s seen in public service, as human rights advocates and policy experts are lining up to demand the video’s public release.
Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, made the remarks on Thursday after viewing footage in a classified briefing of the 2 September follow-up attack that killed two men clinging to wreckage off the coast of Venezuela. His assessment came as experts called the operation murder under international law.
Donald Trump posted video of the initial strike on his Truth Social platform shortly after the operation but no footage of the follow-up attack, which killed the two remaining crew members, has been released.
When pressed about whether he supported killing survivors, Trump said he supported the decision to destroy the boats and that those piloting them were guilty of trying to kill Americans. The Pentagon secretary, Pete Hegseth, said he didn’t see any survivors, explaining that it “exploded, there’s fire, there’s smoke” adding “this is called the fog of war”.
Then on Wednesday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had no objections to making the video of the second strike public. “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem,” Trump said, adding that the strikes were saving American lives.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they would follow Trump’s musings to release the footage.
This week marked intensifying bipartisan congressional scrutiny over the operation. The Washington Post first reported that Hegseth had given a verbal directive to military commanders to ensure no survivors remained.
Marcus Stanley, director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the strikes themselves constitute potential war crimes even before the killing of survivors. “You’re already talking about entities that don’t have any means of defending themselves,” he said. “This is a totally extrajudicial process. They’re simply destroying them and killing everyone on them without any judicial process whatsoever.”
Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, rejected the administration’s characterization of the boat strikes as military operations in an armed conflict. “The president, even though he says it’s a conflict, he can’t just make up a conflict. There isn’t one,” she said, explaining that war has to be declared by a congressional vote. “Nobody on those boats can be killed legally by the United States military.”
Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee, said his panel expects to receive complete audio and video documentation of the strikes as part of an investigation into whether survivors clinging to wreckage were deliberately targeted. The Republican senator Thom Tillis said if reports are substantiated that the strike targeted survivors clinging to burning wreckage, it would violate ethical and legal requirements, adding: “Whoever made that order needs to get the hell out of Washington.”
The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has demanded that Hegseth release the footage, saying it would immediately clarify whether an impermissible strike occurred. He also announced plans to file a war powers resolution alongside senators Tim Kaine and Rand Paul to block deployment of US troops to Venezuela if Trump orders additional strikes.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Adm Frank Bradley, who commanded the operation, acted within his authority and the law when directing the follow-up engagement. The administration has disputed reports that Hegseth personally ordered all occupants to be killed. A total of 83 people have been killed across 21 US military strikes between early September and mid-November.
Human Rights Watch has called on Congress to investigate the entire campaign of strikes, which Yager said fall into “the same bucket of illegal”. She added that regardless of whether the US considers itself at war or in peacetime, any government action to kill, detain or arrest individuals requires due process that should typically be transparent.
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Emily Tripp, executive director of Airwars, a civilian-harm watchdog that monitors armed conflicts, called on the administration to be more transparent about the strike, saying her organization would like to know “what considerations are made around shipwrecked survivors, and why the use of force was chosen over search and rescue when as far as we understand the targets here are the drugs, not the people onboard”.
Admiral Bradley provided classified briefings to congressional armed services committees and the House intelligence committee on Thursday as lawmakers demanded a full accounting of the operation and its legal justification.
Asked what should happen if Congress fails to act, Yager said: “Congress’s job is to have oversight over military operations and they should be stepping up.”
Stanley warned that the precedent extends beyond drug interdiction.
“What’s the next step? There’s somebody committing a street crime, or you claim they’re committing a street crime in a United States city, and then you can unleash the military on them without judicial evidence,” he said. “The American people should get as much transparency and information here to judge what’s being done in their name as possible.”
