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Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions could spark investigations for war crimes or outright murder, sources told The Intercept.By Nick Turse
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike, first reported by The Intercept in early September, in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of the Trump administration’s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2.
The Washington Post recently reported that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order “to kill everybody.” Multiple military legal experts, lawmakers, and now confidential sources within the government who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth’s actions could result in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder.
“Those directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law,” said Todd Huntley, 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. “This is about as clear of a case being patently illegal that subordinates would probably not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense.”
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. Since the attacks began, experts in the laws of war and members of Congress, from both parties, say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — 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, in which law enforcement agencies arrested 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.
The Pentagon’s Law of War Manual is clear on attacking defenseless people. “Persons 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,” reads the guide using the French term for those out of combat. “Persons 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.”
This fundamental tenet stretches back to the 1863 “Lieber Code,” the first modern codification of the laws of war, promulgated by President Abraham Lincoln, which held that anyone who “intentionally 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.”
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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’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs, said each strike creates potential legal liability for the entire chain of command involved in the attacks. “While 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,” she told The Intercept. “Every single strike exposes those in the chain of command to the risk of criminal liability under murder statutes and international law prohibiting extrajudicial killings.”
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More: https://theintercept.com/2025/12/02/hegseth-boat-strikes-war-crime-venezuela/
