Hegseth likens suspected drug boat smugglers to al Qaeda
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday defended the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, saying the U.S. will “keep killing” people he likened to al Qaeda terrorists.
“These narcoterrorists are the al Qaeda of our hemisphere, and we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al Qaeda,” Hegseth said in a defiant speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum.
“We are tracking them, we are killing them, and we will keep killing them so long as they are poisoning our people with narcotics so lethal that they’re tantamount to chemical weapons,” he said, adding that the U.S. is working with allies and partners in the Western hemisphere to tackle “narcoterrorists.”
Hegseth’s characterization of such operations comes as the Pentagon and the White House face increasing pressure from Congress to answer questions about the targeting of boats in international waters that the administration says are suspected of smuggling drugs into the United States.
Those strikes have killed dozens of people who Hegseth says are “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” though reporting from The Associated Press paints a more complicated picture about the victims of the strikes.
Hegseth has come under intense fire from Democrats on Capitol Hill, in particular, for a Sept. 2 operation in which a second strike was ordered on a boat to kill two survivors of the first strike. He has denied ordering the second strike himself, and President Donald Trump has said he supports “the decision to knock out the boats and whoever’s piloting those boats.”
Lawmakers have been openly questioning the legality of the decision to execute the second strike that killed the two survivors and whether it amounted to a war crime.
Hegseth is also under scrutiny for use of his personal cell phone to discuss military operations over Signal group chats.
An inspector general’s report released Thursday found Hegseth’s use of his personal cell phone to share sensitive military information in a group chat in March violated Defense Department policy and put troops at risk.
“The Secretary’s actions created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots,” the report by the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General said.