Admiral tells Congress no 'kill them all' order in strike on alleged drug boat, GOP intel senator

Special Operations Command Comdr. Adm. Frank Bradley, who ordered a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boat, purportedly told Congress on Thursday that there was no “kill them all” order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The second strike killed two survivors of an initial strike on the boat that was in international waters near Venezuela, according to the Associated Press.

Bradley “was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all. He was given an order that, of course, was written down in great detail,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said as he exited a classified briefing with Bradley.

Cotton defended the attack, but Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that while there was no “kill them all” order from Hegseth, he was concerned by what he saw in the video of the second strike.

“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Himes told reporters. “You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States.”

In addition to briefing the House Intelligence Committee, Bradly also briefed the House and Senate Armed Services committees.

Bradley was joined at the Capitol by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Democrat and Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that the strike could constitute a war crime. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have opened probes into recent U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.