Boat Strike Video Shown to Lawmakers

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Frank M. Bradley, commander of the operation, met with members of Congress behind closed doors.

Top military officers showed senior members of Congress a video of a Sept. 2 attack on a boat suspected of carrying drugs, including a follow-up strike that has been at the center of a growing debate over the Trump administration’s lethal mission.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Frank M. Bradley, a top Special Operations commander who oversaw the attack, met with members of Congress to discuss the operation and defend the decision to launch a second strike that killed survivors of the first missile.

The military officers briefed the Republican chairmen and senior Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, as well as defense appropriators, all behind closed doors.

Lawmakers briefed by Admiral Bradley said the admiral denied that he was given any order, written or oral, to “kill them all” or “grant no quarter,” rejecting public reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had directly ordered the follow-up strike to kill the survivors.

But Republicans and Democrats left the closed-door meetings drawing starkly different conclusions after watching the unedited video of the initial strike on the boat on Sept. 2 and the follow-up that killed the survivors and sank the boat.

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the attack “highly lawful and lethal.” He said the video showed two survivors trying to flip a boat “loaded with drugs bound for the United States.” The follow-up missiles were “exactly what we’d expect our military commanders to do,” Mr. Cotton added.

Representative Rick Crawford, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there was “no doubt” in his mind that the Defense Department was carrying out the strikes in a “highly professional manner.”

But Democrats exited the briefings even more concerned about the campaign against drug smugglers that to date has included strikes on 21 vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed 83 people.

Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee who for years has been read in on sensitive counterterrorism and covert operations, told reporters that the Sept. 2 attack video was “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”

“You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States,” he said.

Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that what lawmakers learned was “truly disturbing” and that more accountability was needed.

She called for the unedited video to be released publicly, and for Mr. Hegseth to be fired. “It could not be more obvious that Secretary Hegseth is unfit for the role, and it is past time for him to go,” Ms. Murray added in a statement.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was “deeply disturbed” after the briefing and also called for the release of the video.

“This briefing confirmed my worst fears about the nature of the Trump administration’s military activities, and demonstrates exactly why the Senate Armed Services Committee has repeatedly requested — and been denied — fundamental information, documents and facts about this operation,” he added in a statement.

Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has raised questions about the decision to attack the survivors. He did not respond to questions exiting the briefing on Thursday.

Democrats have been highly skeptical of the campaign, arguing that all of the boat attacks amount to extrajudicial killing or even murder.

Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said he still wanted to see Mr. Hegseth testify about the administration’s policy of carrying out lethal military attacks on boats they believe to be carrying drugs, rather than allowing the Coast Guard to interdict the alleged traffickers.

“If President Trump can pardon a convicted narco-terrorist trafficker, how does this campaign where we are targeting and killing folks on the open ocean to prevent their trafficking of drugs anywhere, how is that legitimate?” Mr. Coons said, referring to Mr. Trump’s decision to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras.

Lawmakers were expected to press General Caine and Admiral Bradley on a range of questions about their mission, including about the original order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that called for the boats to be sunk, the drugs to be destroyed and the people on the boats to be killed.

The lawmakers were also expected to drill down on the military’s planning for what to do with survivors, the approval of those plans and the reasons Admiral Bradley thought that a follow-up strike was justified.

Military officials have said that the survivors were a legitimate target. Legal experts have questioned that.

The questions surrounding the Sept. 2 strike have heightened scrutiny of Mr. Hegseth and Admiral Bradley. Current and former military officers have rallied to the admiral’s defense, worried that he might be held singularly responsible for killing the survivors.

William McRaven, the retired admiral who oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, said on Thursday that while he did not know details of the strike, he had deep trust in Admiral Bradley, whom he said was “one of the finest officers I ever served with.”

“In the 30 years that I have known Mitch, he has always displayed a strong moral compass, impeccable character and someone I trusted to do the right thing under even the most difficult of circumstances,” Admiral McRaven said.

Helene Cooper, Robert Jimison and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.

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