How to get caught in 'fog of war' without a war? Hegseth shows the way

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said that he had not seen survivors in the water before a second US military strike killed two people clinging to a burning boat in the Caribbean on September 2 — an operation that left 11 dead and has prompted bipartisan scrutiny over potential war-crimes violations.

Speaking at a White House cabinet meeting, Hegseth attributed the incident to the “fog of war,” even as lawmakers demand explanations about the Pentagon’s escalating campaign of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels.

“I didn’t personally see survivors,” NBC News quoted Hegseth as telling reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. “The thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire and smoke. You can’t see it.”

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He added, “This is called the fog of war.”

Hegseth said he had watched the initial strike live before “moving on” to another meeting, adding that he “didn’t stick around” to witness the second attack.

He defended Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the follow-up strike.

“He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat, and it was the right call,” The New York Times quoted Hegseth as saying.

Meanwhile, President Trump publicly backed both men on Tuesday, despite saying days earlier that he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike on survivors.

The September 2 operation was the first in a series of 21 strikes that the Pentagon says have killed 82 people in what officials describe as a counter-drug campaign but critics argue amounts to treating suspected smugglers as wartime combatants.

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The Defense Department’s own Law of War Manual states that attacking shipwreck survivors is unlawful — a point fueling congressional demands for answers, especially after the military rescued survivors in a similar incident one month later.

A senior administration official said the US struck the boat four times on Sept. 2 — twice in the initial attack and twice more in the second. Hegseth did not explain why no effort was made to capture or rescue the survivors before sinking the vessel.

Hegseth’s views on rules of engagement

The controversy surrounding the September strike has renewed focus on Hegseth’s longstanding opposition to what he calls “stupid rules of engagement.”

According to a Wall Street Journal report, for years, Hegseth built a national profile defending service members accused of war crimes and urging looser constraints on the use of force. Those views helped win him Trump’s support during the president’s first term and ultimately the Pentagon’s top job.

In books, television appearances, and speeches, Hegseth has argued that legal oversight makes troops less lethal, advocating a philosophy he recently described as “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”

As a National Guard officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, he says he instructed his platoon to ignore JAG guidance he considered restrictive.

Trump embraced Hegseth’s approach, pardoning several troops accused or convicted of killing unarmed civilians after Hegseth championed their cases.

As Hegseth has fired senior military legal officials and rebranded the Pentagon with a “warrior ethos,” saying commanders should not be constrained by “politically correct” rules.

Those positions now sit at the center of a Washington debate over whether the September operation crossed legal lines. Law-of-war experts say the deliberate killing of shipwrecked survivors would clearly violate US doctrine.

“What was so urgent about the second strike at that moment?” WSJ quoted Geoffrey Corn, a former Army senior law-of-war adviser, as saying.

“If the boat was a threat to navigation, go rescue the survivors and then sink it,” Corn added.

Some lawmakers worry the administration is shifting blame onto Adm. Bradley ahead of his closed-door testimony Thursday.

“Looks like they’re throwing him under the bus,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Others, including Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), praised Hegseth’s broader approach while questioning the second strike.

Hegseth insists the operation was carried out properly and argues that Trump has empowered commanders to “do what is necessary… in the dead of night on behalf of the American people.”

But as investigators seek clarity on why two survivors were killed when alternatives were available, the incident has become a test of both his leadership and his long-running campaign to overhaul the military’s rules of engagement.

With inputs from agencies