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Republican Senator Rand Paul has called Pete Hegseth “incompetent” or a “liar” after the Defense Secretary denied this. Order to “kill everyone” During the United States’ first Venezuelan boat strike.
Since September, the US has launched more than a dozen strikes against alleged drug-carrying ships in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, killing more than 80 people.
On 2 September, in the first such attack, Hegseth gave a verbal instruction that no survivors Washington Post Informed. After the first missile strike, when two survivors were seen clinging to the debris, the special operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second attack to follow Hegseth’s verbal order to “kill them all.”
Hegseth, a military veteran and former Fox News host, vehemently denied these claims and dismissed them “fake news” Following the Post’s article, he called it “fabricated, inflammatory and defamatory” on his social media.
On Tuesday, the Kentucky senator said Hegseth was either “lying” or “incompetent.”
“Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of it and it didn’t happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen,” Paul told reporters. “And then the next day, from the White House podium, they’re saying it happened. So, either he was lying to us on Sunday, or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it happened.”
Paul, a longtime GOP senator who is no stranger to promoting his party, continued: “Do we think there’s any possibility that, on Sunday, the secretary of defense did not know that a second attack had occurred?”
“So as a country, will we let people lie to us, to our face? Will we let them kill people they call enemies anytime in the world? Will we let them do things like when someone is stranded and grab the pieces of a boat and put another bomb on it?”
The Republican said: “I think it’s outrageous and it should be universally condemned.”
On September 3, the day after the first fatal attack, Hegseth appeared on Fox News and said he had seen the attack live.
“I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they were representing, and that was Tren de Aragua, a narco-terrorist organization designated by the United States that was trying to poison our country with illegal drugs,” he said. Said,
This weekend, President Donald Trump strongly supported his defense secretary’s version of events, including Hegseth’s claim that he did not order the second strike.
The President said, “The first attack was very deadly. It would have been fine. And if there had been two people around, but Pete said that didn’t happen.” “I have a lot of confidence.”
Trump said, “I’m going to find out about it, but Pete said he did not order the deaths of those two people.”
But the President acknowledged that he would not want a second attack on survivors. “I don’t want this, not another attack,” he told reporters on Sunday.
At a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the Defense Secretary added to the scandal that has unfolded by saying he “didn’t stick around” to see the second attack and did not learn about it until hours later.
on monday The White House said The admiral, not Hegseth, ordered a second attack on the boat.
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said, “He directed officials to ensure that the boat was destroyed and the threat from narco terrorists was eliminated.” He said he was “within his authority and within the law” when he gave the order.
The Defense Secretary also defended the Admiral. Hegseth said they “ultimately made the right decision to sink the boat and eliminate the threat. They sank the boat, sank the boat and eliminated the threat. And it was the right decision. We’re with them.”
on tuesday a bipartisan group of senators An investigation into allegations announced that Hegseth had ordered that no one survive.
For months, members of Congress The legality of the boat attacks has been questionedAlleging that the Trump administration’s deadly campaign amounts to extrajudicial killings, several lawmakers described it as alleged A two-pronged attack is a clear war crime.
The Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. However, Trump said in October that he had no plans to ask Congress to declare war.
The President said, “I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just going to kill people who are bringing drugs into our country. OK. We’re going to kill them. They might as well be dead.”