Hegseth declines to comment on report that boat survivors were killed on his orders

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is declining to comment on a report that he ordered the military to kill all passengers aboard a boat suspected of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea in September. According to The Washington Post , the Sept. 2 boat strike initially left two survivors clinging to the boat. The Post says Adm. Mitch Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, then ordered a second strike in order to comply with Hegseth's orders and to ensure the survivors couldn't call on other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo. If true, it is unclear why Bradley wouldn't have ordered troops to collect the survivors and their cargo from the water, as the military did in a subsequent strike when two survivors were taken aboard a Navy ship via helicopter. Those survivors were later r