Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., second from left, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025 in Washington following a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing where members received a closed briefing on the September 2, 2025, boat strike on narco-traffickers in the Caribbean. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees say they are satisfied with the Pentagon’s explanation for a strike on an alleged drug boat that killed two survivors and will not pursue further congressional oversight of the episode.
Sen. Roger Wicker, of Mississippi, said Thursday that he saw no evidence of war crimes in the controversial Sept. 2 follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean and is confident the Trump administration’s military campaign against drug smugglers in the region is based on “sound legal advice.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Mike Rogers, of Alabama, also expressed confidence in the legality of the operation and said he had walked away from multiple classified briefings on the strike satisfied that all actions in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific were “in compliance with the law of armed conflict.”
Both lawmakers had called for investigations into the Sept. 2 attack after news reports revealed the first strike had failed to destroy the boat and left two survivors clinging to the wreckage. The military then launched three more strikes, killing them.
Democrats this week continued to question the legality of the follow-up strike and pressed for the Pentagon to publicly release the full, unedited video of the attack. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said he would not support releasing the video beyond certain congressional committees, citing the risk of exposing sensitive operational details.
Wicker on Thursday commended military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon for working “in good faith” to provide answers to the Senate Armed Services Committee and said he was content with all the information he had received.
“The fact is that our military is asked to make incredibly difficult decisions. Service members must do so based on the best available information and often under very tight timelines,” he said in a statement. “It is in the best interest of our national security to support our men and women in uniform when they act based on advice from senior legal advisors.”
Rogers said Wednesday that the House Armed Services Committee is being notified of every attack on alleged drug-smuggling boats, now totaling at least 26, and will not be pursuing additional briefings or hearings to examine the initial Sept. 2 strike.
“Every strike is based on rigorous intelligence linking those boats to well-known narco-terrorists,” Rogers said. “Every strike undergoes a comprehensive legal review and complies with defined rules of engagement to ensure innocent civilians are not involved.”
Rep. Adam Smith, of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee, said he will keep pushing for more information from the Pentagon, including the executive order that gave Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack, his “incredibly broad” rules of engagement.
He also called for Hegseth to come before the panel for a public hearing.
“This is a major use of the United States military to kill people and potentially start a war,” he said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. “Secretary Hegseth ought to come before Congress and say, ‘This is what we’re doing, and this is why.’”
The House on Wednesday narrowly rejected a resolution to bar the Trump administration from carrying out more boat strikes without the express approval of Congress. Hours later, U.S. Southern Command announced it had struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing four people.
