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A video of a U.S. military strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that killed two survivors of the initial attack shows “nothing remarkable,” the Republican who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday, and he would not oppose its public release if the Pentagon were to declassify it.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who backs President Donald Trump’s campaign against suspected drug smugglers, is partially aligning himself with Trump and top Democrats in favor of releasing the video of the Sept. 2 attack. It was the first in what has become a monthslong series of American strikes on vessels near Venezuela that the administration says were ferrying drugs. At least 87 people have been killed in 22 known strikes.
But Cotton, among the top lawmakers on national security committees who were briefed Thursday by the Navy admiral commanding those strikes, is splitting with Democrats over whether military personnel acted lawfully in carrying out a second strike to kill the two survivors. The nine others aboard the boat also were killed.
“I think it’s really important that this video be made public. It’s not lost on anyone, of course, that the interpretation of the video … broke down precisely on party lines,” said Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He said he has spent “years looking at videos of lethal action taken, often in the terrorism context, and this video was profoundly shaking.”
When Trump was asked Wednesday whether he would release the video of that follow-on strike, he told reporters, “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have we’d certainly release. No problem.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Fox News interview Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California that officials were reviewing the video. “Whatever we were to decide to release, we’d have to be very responsible” about it.
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“That boat was still a valid target,” Cotton said, arguing that releasing the video would prove that the two survivors of the initial strike remained a threat.
“It’s not gruesome. I didn’t find it distressing or disturbing,” he said, explaining why he does not have a problem with releasing all the footage. “It looks like any number of dozens of strikes we’ve seen on jeeps and pickup trucks in the Middle East over the years.” He added that “there’s nothing remarkable on that video, in my opinion.”
The classified sessions on Capitol Hill came after The Washington Post reported that Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley had ordered a follow-on attack that killed those survivors, to comply with Hegseth’s demands. Bradley told lawmakers there was no “kill them all” order from Hegseth, but a video of the entire series of attacks left some lawmakers with serious questions. Legal experts have said killing survivors of a strike at sea could be a violation of the laws of military warfare.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and Himes are among those who have seen the video and they disputed Cotton’s characterization.
“I have no doubt that these guys were involved in the running of drugs. … But in that instance, these guys were about to die,” Himes said.
Smith added: “It did not appear that these two survivors were in any position to continue the fight.”
Himes said lawmakers are aware of the partisan divide.
Some legal experts have disputed that the United States is in an official armed conflict with Venezuela, raising questions about the legalities of using American military personnel for what would amount to law enforcement activities that require due process. Other experts have said that, regardless of the terms of engagement, international law does not allow further attacks on defenseless survivors of a previous attack. Specifically, Pentagon protocols say that firing upon the shipwrecked is illegal.
There have been questions and criticism of the mission raised by lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill, with inquiries ongoing.
Bradley told lawmakers in a closed session that he ordered the second attack on the wreckage of a boat that was carrying cocaine because it was believed that bales of the drug were still in the hull of the boat.
Cotton said Sunday that two final victims were “not in a shipwrecked state” or “floating helplessly in the water” but instead were “sitting or standing on top of a capsized boat.” Because they were “not incapacitated,” he said, “that boat, its cargo … remained valid targets.”
Smith, who saw the same video, said, “The boat was clearly incapacitated. A tiny portion of it remained capsized, the bow of the boat. They had no communications device. Certainly, they were unarmed.”
Cotton was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Smith was on ABC’s “This Week” and Himes appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
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