US politicians on Sunday said they wanted Congress to review US military strikes against alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
Their comments came after The Washington Post last week reported that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of a September 2 attack.
The report said he had ordered a second strike on two crew members who had survived an initial attack on their boat and were clinging to wreckage.
“This rises to the level of a war crime if it's true,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine told CBS News.
Republican Representative Mike Turner, when asked about a follow-up strike aimed at people no longer able to fight, said Congress does not have information that happened. He said leaders of the armed services committees in the House and Senate have opened investigations.
“Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Mr Turner told CBS.
He said there are concerns in Congress about the attacks on boats that the Trump administration says are carrying drugs, but the allegations regarding the September 2 attack “is completely outside anything that has been discussed with Congress and there is an ongoing investigation".
After the Post's report, Mr Hegseth said on Friday on X that “fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland".
Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, and its top Democrat, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, said in a joint statement on Friday that the committee “will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances".
That was followed on Saturday with the chairman of the House armed services committee, Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama, and ranking Democratic member, Washington's Adam Smith, issuing a joint statement saying the panel was committed to “providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defence’s military operations in the Caribbean".
The boat strikes come as the US increases pressure on Venezuela.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump said the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety", an assertion that raised more questions about th
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