Adm. Mitch Bradley to brief Senate committee on boat strikes
Dec. 4 (UPI) — Adm. Mitch Bradley, the military leader the White House said ordered the second strike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean Sea, is expected to brief Congress Thursday on the incident in which two survivors of the initial attack on the boat were killed.
Unnamed sources familiar with the planned briefing told ABC News and CNN the briefing will take place as part of a bipartisan inquiry into the Sept. 2 strikes on the boat.
Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that in addition to Bradley, the panel would have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, speak to lawmakers, Politico reported. An unnamed source told Politico that lawmakers on the committee would view video of the strikes.
Bradley and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have faced scrutiny in recent days after The Washington Post reported that the U.S. military carried out a second strike on a boat thought to be transporting illicit drugs. The first attack killed all but two people aboard the boat. The second strike killed the two survivors.
Hegseth denied that he verbally ordered the military to “kill everybody” in the attack, as reported by The Post. The defense secretary said Bradley was responsible for ordering the second strike.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said Monday that Hegseth authorized a second attack, which Bradley then ordered as head of the Joint Special Operations Command at the time.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have taken issue with the call to carry out a second strike on the disabled boat and survivors, prompting the inquiry by the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee — Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Reed.
“We’re going to go into detail as [to] precisely what happened, particularly with the second strike,” Reed said of the classified hearing Wednesday.
Speaking Wednesday during the last Cabinet meeting of the year, Hegseth said the Trump administration has “only just begun” attack suspected drug boats and putting alleged “narcoterrorists at the bottom of the ocean.
