\n<\/p>\n
Lawmakers who saw<\/span> a video of a U.S. attack on wounded and helpless people clinging to the wreckage of a supposed drug boat on September 2 described the footage as deeply disturbing. <\/p>\n A small number of members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate and House Armed Services committees, as well as some staff directors, saw the recording during closed-door briefings Thursday with Adm. Frank M. Bradley<\/a>, the head of Special Operations Command, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I saw in that room is one of the most troubling scenes I\u2019ve ever seen in my time in public service,\u201d said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. \u201cYou have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States.<\/p>\n Until Thursday, the only video of the attack that had been seen by lawmakers was an edited clip posted <\/a>to the Truth Social <\/a>account of President Donald Trump on September 2 announcing the strike. The edited clip captures the initial strike, showing a four-engine speedboat erupt in an explosion. It does not show the second strike on the wreckage of the vessel and the survivors \u2014 which was first reported by<\/a> The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n Himes said the unedited video clearly shows the U.S. striking helpless people.<\/p>\n \u201cAny American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cAny American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors \u2014 bad guys, bad guys, but attacking shipwrecked sailors,\u201d he told The Intercept.<\/p>\n Himes said that Bradley \u2014 who conducted the follow-up strike<\/a> as the then-commander of Joint Special Operations Command \u2014 \u201cconfirmed that there had not been a \u2018kill them all\u2019 order.\u201d The Washington Post recently reported <\/a>that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order \u201cto kill everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also expressed dismay after watching the footage. \u201cI am deeply disturbed by what I saw this morning. The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of the September 2 strike, as the President has agreed to do,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis briefing confirmed my worst fears about the nature of the Trump Administration\u2019s military activities, and demonstrates exactly why the Senate Armed Services Committee has repeatedly requested \u2014 and been denied \u2014 fundamental information, documents, and facts about this operation. This must and will be the only beginning of our investigation into this incident,\u201d said Reed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump has said he supports the release of the video showing the second boat strike that killed the remaining survivors of the initial September 2 attack<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t know what they have, but whatever they have, we\u2019d certainly release, no problem,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, told The Intercept that intense scrutiny needs to extend far beyond the first strike in the U.S. operation in the waters near Venezuela.<\/p>\n \u201cOversight needs to be broader than this one incident. It needs to cover the entire maritime bombing campaign. And it needs to go beyond the Department of Defense,\u201d he told The Intercept. \u201cWe need to know how this policy was formulated in the first instance. What was the process by which some aspect of it got legal blessing from the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel? That all needs to be drug out into the open.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n