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Secretary of Defense<\/span> Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike, first reported by The Intercept<\/a> in early September, in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of the Trump administration\u2019s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2.<\/p>\n The Washington Post recently reported <\/a>that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order \u201cto kill everybody.\u201d Multiple military legal experts, lawmakers, and now confidential sources within the government who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth\u2019s actions could result in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder.<\/p>\n \u201cThose directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law,\u201d said Todd Huntley<\/a>, a former Staff Judge Advocate who served as a legal adviser on Joint Special Operations task forces conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere, using shorthand for the Uniform Code of Military Justice. \u201cThis is about as clear of a case being patently illegal that subordinates would probably not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense.\u201d<\/p>\n The military has carried out 21 known attacks, destroying 22 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September, killing at least 83 civilians<\/a>. Since the attacks began, experts in the laws of war and members of Congress, from both parties<\/a>, say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings <\/a>because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians \u2014 even suspected criminals \u2014 who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. The summary executions are a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs<\/a>, in which law enforcement agencies arrested<\/a> suspected drug smugglers. The double-tap strike on September 2 added a second layer of illegality to strikes that experts and lawmakers say are already tantamount to murder<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s Law of War Manual is clear on attacking defenseless people. \u201cPersons who have been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck, such that they are no longer capable of fighting, are hors de combat,\u201d reads the guide<\/a> using the French term for those out of combat. \u201cPersons who have been incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack.\u201d<\/p>\n This fundamental tenet stretches back to the 1863 \u201cLieber Code<\/a>,\u201d the first modern codification of the laws of war, promulgated by President Abraham Lincoln, which held that anyone who \u201cintentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death, if duly convicted.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the weekend, lawmakers expressed rare bipartisan agreement about the illegality of killing survivors. \u201cObviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,\u201d Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation\u201d on Sunday. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Armed Services Committee, said<\/a> on CBS that if the Post\u2019s reporting was accurate, the attack \u201crises to the level of a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration insists the attacks are defensible because it has deemed the targets \u2014 alleged drug-traffickers \u2014 to be terrorists. On Sunday, as questions mounted about the order to kill all survivors of the initial boat strike, President Donald Trump said Hegseth told him that \u201che did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,\u201d Hegseth wrote <\/a>on X.<\/p>\n White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm on Monday that Hegseth authorized the double-tap attack. \u201cOn September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,\u201d she said<\/a>, referring to Adm. Frank Bradley, then the commander of Joint Special Operations Command and now head of Special Operations Command.<\/p>\n Top Republicans and Democrats on the two congressional committees overseeing the Pentagon vowed over the weekend to increase their scrutiny of the attacks. \u201cThis committee is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense\u2019s military operations in the Caribbean,\u201d House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Ranking Member Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a joint statement<\/a>. \u201cWe take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question.\u201d Staffers on Capitol Hill told The Intercept that they have started gathering information toward that end.<\/p>\n Sarah Harrison, who advised Pentagon policymakers on issues related to human rights and the law of war in her former role as associate general counsel at the Pentagon\u2019s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs, said each strike creates potential legal liability for the entire chain of command involved in the attacks. \u201cWhile the September 2 strike seems uniquely depraved, every single strike taken against these boats by DoD is a summary execution of criminal suspects, people who even if tried in court would never get the death penalty,\u201d she told The Intercept. \u201cEvery single strike exposes those in the chain of command to the risk of criminal liability under murder statutes and international law prohibiting extrajudicial killings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single strike exposes those in the chain of command to the risk of criminal liability under murder statutes and international law prohibiting extrajudicial killings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n A government source who has been briefed on the September 2 strike told The Intercept, on the condition of anonymity, that Hegseth is \u201cmaking murderers\u201d up and down the chain of command.<\/p>\n The administration insists the attacks are permitted because the U.S. is engaged in \u201cnon-international armed conflict<\/a>\u201d with \u201cdesignated terrorist organizations<\/a>. Trump has justified the attacks, in a War Powers report <\/a>to Congress, under his Article II constitutional authority as commander in chief of the U.S. military and claimed to be acting pursuant to the United States\u2019 inherent right of self-defense as a matter of international law. The Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel has also produced a classified opinion that provides legal cover<\/a> for the lethal strikes.<\/a><\/p>\n The Former JAGs Working Group \u2014 an organization made up of former and retired military judge advocates founded in February \u2014 issued a statement<\/a> condemning Hegseth\u2019s reported kill-everybody order and its execution by subordinates as \u201cwar crimes, murder, or both.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf the U.S. military operation to interdict and destroy suspected narco-trafficking vessels is a \u2018non-international armed conflict,\u2019 as the Trump Administration suggests, orders to \u2018kill everybody,\u2019 which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give \u2018no quarter,\u2019 and to \u2018double-tap\u2019 a target in order to kill survivors, are clearly illegal under international law,\u201d according to the former JAGs. If the attacks are taking place outside of an armed conflict, which most experts contend is the case, the JAGs say that such orders \u201cto kill helpless civilians clinging to the wreckage of a vessel our military destroyed would subject everyone from SECDEF down to the individual who pulled the trigger to prosecution under U.S. law for murder.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n