A group of US senators has called for a legal review of President Donald Trump’s strikes on alleged cartel boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The renewed concerns emerged after the Washington Post reported on Friday that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had issued an order to kill survivors from one of the vessels set ablaze by a previous strike.
“If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, told CBS News on Sunday.
Kaine added that he and some of his colleagues were “deeply worried” about “the entire legal rationale for the strikes.” He had earlier attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass a bill that would bar Trump from attacking Venezuela without congressional approval.
Mike Turner, a Republican from Ohio, told CBS that “there are very serious concerns in Congress about the attacks on the so-called drug boats down in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the legal justification that has been provided.”
Although Hegseth dismissed the Post’s report as “fake news,” he reiterated that the strikes were intended to “stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people.”
Trump has accused Venezuela’s left-wing government of aiding cartels and has threatened attacks against the country. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has denied any ties to organized crime and warned the US against launching another “crazy war.”
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