People who have seen video disagree over meaning of signal from alleged traffickers

Follow the WSJ in Apple News

WASHINGTON—Two survivors of a lethal U.S. strike Sept. 2 in the Caribbean struggled to flip a remnant of their capsized boat over the course of an hour and waved as an aircraft passed overhead, according to lawmakers and other people briefed on the attack.

Watching the morning attack unfold on live video from his command center at Fort Bragg, N.C., Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley ordered a second strike on the alleged drug boat that has become a flashpoint in a debate about whether the response constituted a war crime.

The details of the video were described by the lawmakers and people who attended multiple briefings Thursday with Bradley on Capitol Hill.

Some lawmakers claim that the men appeared helpless with no weapons or communications devices. But Trump administration officials and some Republican lawmakers say the second attack was justified because the survivors might still have sought to deliver their shipment and threatened potential rescuers.

Two lawmakers who viewed the video said the survivors’ wave appeared to be an appeal for help from a U.S. military aircraft. Bradley told the members of Congress that they could have been signaling to other vessels to help them finish their drug run, but noted a surveillance drone detected no other boats in the immediate vicinity.

Bradley’s defenders say the attack was legal and aimed at eliminating drug traffickers who President Trump has said are in “armed conflict” with the U.S.

“The only reason the narco-terrorists didn’t flip their boat back over and continue their mission is because our military didn’t give them the chance,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday in a social-media post.

Bradley told lawmakers Thursday that he thought the table-size portion of the boat’s bow the survivors were clinging to concealed submerged drugs. Unless destroyed, the drugs and the men could conceivably float to a nearby shore and continue their delivery, according to some familiar with the briefings.

No drugs were visible on the video. Bradley told lawmakers, however, that he thought submerged packages of cocaine were keeping the vessel’s remains afloat, according to the lawmakers and others familiar with the briefing.

The vessel was in international waters in the narrow strait between Venezuela and the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, but closer to the Caribbean nation.

Before making the decision to fire, Bradley told lawmakers, he had asked his legal adviser to provide him the definition of a shipwreck, seeking to determine whether the damaged vessel was off limits to attack under the law of war. Deciding it wasn’t, he proceeded with the deadly second strike.

An American aircraft fired three precision-guided Griffin missiles at the vessel and killed the two survivors. The close-up video shows the partially clothed young men being blown apart in the water.

A Defense Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Bradley’s briefing and referred to a social-media posts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in recent days that drug traffickers who are struck are legitimate targets because the administration considers them to be narco-terrorists.

Trump is under pressure from Democrats to release the full, unedited video of the operation, a move he said Wednesday he would support. Since the first strike of suspected drug boats, the U.S. has expanded the mission across the Caribbean and into the Eastern Pacific, sinking 20 more vessels and killing at least 87 people.

The Pentagon and White House are in discussions about releasing the video, officials said, though there is no clear timeline for its release.

Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com, Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com

Get the WSJ’s Free
Newsletter

With our daily What's News email, you'll catch up on the headlines and understand the news.

FOLLOW US

Follow the journalists you trust and personalize our app.”

Excerpt From

“Drug-Boat Attack Survivors Waved as U.S. Aircraft Flew By, Video Shows”

The Wall Street Journal

https://apple.news/A0VxthUwwQGCQinG0MJurdg

This material may be protected by copyright.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5806833&forum_id=2).#49487560)