Pentagon planning of attacks on “drug boats” under scrutiny

The army would try rescue the survivors who seemed helpless, shipwrecked and outside of what the government considered a fight.

But he would try to kill them again if they took what the United States considered hostile action, such as communicating with suspected cartel members, the officials said.

After the smoke from the first attack cleared on September 2, there were two survivors, and one of them radioed for help, U.S. authorities said.

The admiral Frank M. Bradley, in command of the operation, ordered a second attack and both died.

Military contingency plans have taken on new meaning as Bradley and Gen. Dan Cainechairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to go to Capitol Hill on Thursday to answer questions about the attack amid a scandal over the murder of survivors.

The men plan to present a vigorous defense, authorities said, of what they will claim was a subsequent legal attack on the survivors.

That moment is just a small part of Trump’s legally controversial campaign, which involves killing people suspected of drug smuggling at sea as if they were war combatants, but is now the subject of intense congressional scrutiny.

The details of the contingency plan could raise more questions about who was responsible of the second attack:

the commander who ordered it or the Secretary of Defense who approved the general operation.

Many critics, including some lawmakers, have claimed that the subsequent attack could constitute a war crime.

Defenders for Hegseth and Bradley said that once lawmakers learn more about the planning scenarios and circumstances of the second attack, they will be exonerated.

The president Donald Trump He offered his support to both men on Wednesday.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the military plans.

On orders from Trump and Hegseth, the US military attacked 21 ships in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 83 people, as part of a legally disputed policy of summarily execute to people suspected of smuggling drugs as if they were combatants on a battlefield.

The initial survivors’ alleged radio communications — including any recordings of interceptions the United States may have — may not be the only messages lawmakers seek to examine as contemporaneous evidence of what happened.

Several US officials told The New York Times that military officials had used a written text message system known as “Strike Bridge” to communicate, both during pre-attack scenario planning and during the operation itself.

The written messages, they claimed, included communications between Bradley and the SEAL Team 6 operators who were directing the drone.

Strike Bridge automatically saves those messages, authorities said.

Several congressional officials indicated that lawmakers had requested to review records related to the operation, along with written documentation such as Hegseth’s execution order and rules of engagement.

It is unclear whether the Pentagon will hand them over.

U.S. officials reported that the military was also considering showing lawmakers the full, unedited video of the Sept. 2 confrontation with the ship.

Congressional officials indicated that lawmakers needed to see the full recording to carry out adequate supervision.

Trump said Wednesday that he would release any video the administration had of the Sept. 2 attack.

Under the plans Hegseth had approved, Bradley interpreted the alleged communications between the initial survivors and their colleagues to mean that the survivors were still in the fight, rather than being shipwrecked and helpless people against which it would be a war crime to attack.

The Pentagon’s law of war manual states that to be considered shipwrecked, people must require assistance and care, and refrain from any hostile act.

A manual for US naval commanders indicates that combatants are only considered shipwrecked if they have ceased all active combat activity.

The Pentagon’s defense of its actions rests largely on the premise that there was a “fight” from the beginning.

In defending the campaign of summary executions at sea as legitimate, the administration has relied on Trump’s controversial determination that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and that people suspected of smuggling drugs to them are “combatants.”

A memorandum, still secretfrom the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel accepts Trump’s claims about the nature of drug cartels and the existence of an armed conflict.

Based on this premise, he concludes that boat attacks are lawful.

One of its key conclusions, according to people who have read it, is that the alleged drug shipments aboard vessels are legal military objectives because otherwise the cartels could sell them and use the profits to buy military equipment to sustain their supposed war efforts.

The Pentagon’s emphasis on so-called radio communications appears to be based on that logic.

The idea seems to be that, without a second attack, another vessel could have come to rescue not only the survivors, but also any part of the alleged cocaine shipment that the first explosion did not destroy, so calling for help was a hostile act.

A wide range of legal experts rejects the legitimacy of Trump’s claim that this is an armed conflict.

They claim that there is no such conflict, that the crews of vessels suspected of smuggling drugs are civilians, not combatants, and that Trump and Hegseth have been giving illegal orders to commit assassinations.

The second attack on September 2 appears to have sparked bipartisan oversight interest, in part because Republicans can criticize it without directly challenging Trump.

This is because, even if one accepts Trump’s claim that this is an armed conflict, killing enemy shipwrecks is a war crime.

Hegseth issued general orders authorizing the military to sink the ships, destroy the drugs, and murder the people on board.

These orders, drawn up before the first attack, have remained practically unchanged throughout the campaign, according to authorities.

Bradley and his subordinates developed specific plans and scenarios for the operation based on the general order issued by Hegseth.

Hegseth reviewed those plans and gave approval for the specific September 2 attack based on them, but turned over direction of the operation to Bradley.

U.S. officials said Hegseth fully supported Bradley’s actions and believed that they followed the plans he had presented to the secretary and other senior Pentagon officials.

Both Hegseth and Caine were monitoring a live video feed of the attacks, authorities said.

Hegseth testified Tuesday that he did not stay to see if there were survivors of the second attack that killed them.