Ex-Secretary of Defense Declares There’s No Question a ‘War Crime’ Was Committed if Hegseth Attacked Drug Boat Survivors

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said there is no doubt a “war crime” was committed if a recent Washington Post report that current SecDef Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike to kill survivors of an attack on a suspected drug boat is true.

Panetta, who served in the same position as Hegseth under ex-President Barack Obama, shared his thoughts during an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room on Monday morning.

Co-host Wolf Blitzer asked him about the WaPo report, which said the second strike in the Caribbean in early September was carried out after Hegseth said to “kill everybody” on the boat. Two survivors were killed in the followup strike, after nine suspected Tren De Aragua “narco-terrorists” were killed in the first.

“If the U.S. military knew about survivors from that initial September 2 strike, and sought to strike again and kill everyone on board who survived, is that illegal? Is that a war crime?” Blitzer asked.

“I dont think there’s any question that that’s a war crime, if it happened in that way,” Panetta said.

President Donald Trump, when asked about the report on Sunday, said “Number one, I don’t know that that happened.” 

He continued, saying, “I wouldn’t have wanted that, a second strike. The first strike was very lethal…  but Pete said that [second strike] didn’t happen.”

Hegseth also issued a statement, saying no illegal strike took place.

Panetta said the conflicting stories require further investigation. He told Blitzer he was happy two congressional committees were probing the incident — and that, if the WaPo report is confirmed, there must be discipline for it.

“There’s obviously going to be a lot of different viewpoints. You heard what the president said,” Panetta said. “But I think, ultimately, it’s up to those committees to find out exactly what happened. And if it was a war crime, to make sure we hold people accountable.”

Elie Honig, CNN’s legal analyst, came on the show after Panetta. He went even further than Panetta, saying it was a textbook example of an “illegal” order cited in the “Department of Defense’s own manual on the law of war.”

Watch above via CNN.

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