Hegseth, citing ‘fog of war,’ says he learned of survivors hours after strike

Hegseth, citing ‘fog of war,’ says he learned of survivors hours after the strike

Hegseth, citing ‘fog of war,’ says he learned of survivors hours after the strike. Welcome back to Fox Live. I'm Andy Mack. We heard some questions from Defense Secretary Pat Hicks inside the cabinet meeting earlier today,

about an alleged drug attack, after taking a boat to the Caribbean. Saying that I didn't see the second strike that came back in September.

More on that on the 2nd. Let's get us up to speed with Rebecca Castor. Criticism of the war, opposition to Secretary Pat Jest. After reports emerged last week that the U.S. military had a follow-up strike.

The suspected drug boat killed survivors in the water. I didn't see the survivors in person, but I was standing there because the thing was burning. And it exploded.

And the smoke from the fire, you can't see the digital, it's called the fog of war. Killing survivors in a shipwreck is a war crime. It should never have been appointed.

That's a disaster. During the cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Haig said he saw the first strike but was not in the room when the second shot was ordered,

but he stands by the Navy commander who made the call, as Admiral Bradley correctly judged. Ultimately, to sink the ship and eliminate the threat.

The Pentagon began targeting alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific in early September. And since then, there have been at least 21 reported attacks

resulting in 83 deaths, a time I can’t recall in our history of counterterrorism operations. We attack a group, whether it’s a building, a boat, or a vehicle.

And then, we were like, oh, okay, there are survivors, we have to go. We can’t kill them. Of course, kill them. Many Democrats are calling for his resignation

But he’s not backing down from military action. And President Trump has the backing that the drugs are coming. 91% We've had a bit of a pause because it's hard to find boats to hit right now.

Which is the whole point. Right? Congress plans to investigate the double strikes while the White House insists that this operation targeting drug cartels is justified. Rebecca Castor in Washington.

Fox News. Well, thank you very much. For that. Rebecca as Haggs in searching through the fog of war in this statement from the Navy Vice Admiral.

Bradley had full authority to do this. So let's talk more about what that means. As it happened in the cabinet meeting. He said

that he didn't see the survivors and the Wanderer when that second strike was ordered and started by saying that the vessel exploded in smoke and fire, and you couldn't see anything.

So here's a little glimpse of what he said. Stop. Let's join in now, by a retired Marine intelligence officer. Program officer friend. How are you, Camper? Thank you very much for joining us.

I want to go into the term fog of war. Does it apply here? Well, it's interesting how, uh, uh, Pete Haig used the fog of war.

He was talking about when he hit, and there was a lot of smoke and stuff. And then right after that, he called the fog of war, and that's it, yeah. Usually, when you say the fog of war,

it's talking about uncertainty, armed conflict, what? You're going against it, what's behind that hill, you know, information coming in is incomplete

or you know, uh, contradictory, or something like that. It's rare. Ahad ek hada is actually said in the context of something that looked like fog, which was the smoke that was rising from the boat after it washed up.

But that's what he was referring to. But there's a degree of uncertainty. Now, could there have been a second strike? On the boat to destroy the drugs?

It's possible, but the reports that have come out say that the order was that there were no survivors, no survivors, and it's a very different order. And if that's the case, it seems to be a violation of Article 51 of the Geneva Convention,

It's a violation of U.S. law, um, you know, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, any officer can be martial law upon issuance of a court order.

So it's also a violation of the statute of limitations. Anyone can be prosecuted. But if there's a lot of disasters in that, we're still trying to figure out

what the order was now. It was interesting when defending it today. Umuh, Admiral Mitch Bradley is the commander of our Special Operations Command. He blamed the decision to attack on him.

Oh, Admiral Bradley too. And oh, it's just, you know, I have a film. Whatever was done there could have been a second strike, and it was done with the intention of taking it out.

You know, de-drugging itself and sinking the boat. Oh, and it might not have happened, knowing that there were actual survivors in the water.

That it's very possible. Oh, something like that, you know, optics are great, but they're not perfect, and if you have a lot of flare and stuff, you start to run out of gas.

If you can't see them visually, if you can't use infrared because of the heat coming from the boat, you start to run away in ways

that you can identify anyone in the water. And then they get, of course, you're also burning pieces of the boat in the water and stuff. So, you're never sure in that regard,

Oh, blaming the fog of war. Probably, it wouldn't be fundamentally the wrong way to go, you know, assessing the situation, but of course, if the order had left no survivors, you're in a completely different legal position,

And there are probably lawyers on both sides standing there and explaining why this was done or why it was done? It was done. But I know most lawyers would look at it

and say, If that was an order. Oh, they would certainly say that it probably looks like it's a violation of Article 51. And fog of war, we don't usually see it used in a literal sense,

where they have smog or smoke coming out. So I wanted to talk to you about something that you also raised, because I want to go into the chain of command in this regard, 

because obviously there's an admiral, Vice Admiral Bradley, who is very high up in the military. He said he observed the first level. He had to go to other meetings

so he didn't see the second strike. How does that work in terms of that chain of command? Does he? Does Sethu have to be there? Is that something that is going on to authorize a strike? I actually found that kind of discussion. I saw the first strike, and I left, and I had to go to meetings. Totally understandable. I mean

that the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of War has a lot of things going on. So you know it's very interesting when they and this is something 

that we can do now that we probably couldn't have said 30 years ago, or whatever, but something we can certainly do now. Where you can sit there and kind of get real-time input on tactical operations in the field.

uhway out there and the water sources in the field, for that matter. Oh, but in this case, it's kind of an interesting thing. Uh, according to the report, SEAL Team 6, uh, sometimes known as the Dive Group,

SEAL Team 6 was actually in charge of that operation. Um, and of course, you know, Admiral Bradley was a very, you know. An amazing SEAL officer throughout his career.

And SEAL Team 6. They are what they call Tier 1 elements, so they actually report to something called the Joint Special Operations Command. That was the previous command. That was Admiral Bradley.

And then now he's a 4-star admiral, he's a full admiral. He is in charge of Special Operations Command, the combined command in charge of all special operations around the world. So, the chain of command goes.

Through SOCOM, JSOCand then from JSOC, it literally goes pretty much, straight up, um, SEAL Team 6 because they are unique assets. They are unlike any other asset that would be in that area.

They could theoretically be cut off so that the US Southern Command could command them, but it seems to me that this was something where they cooperated with us.

Southern Command, bit by bit, Joint, Special Operations. Command was probably running this thing directly autonomously, and this was the first one, so, uh, not surprised that they would establish a command relationship like this.

If this were the case, uh, again, the command relationship would be something that we had to establish ahead of time. Was there anyone in between? Special Operations Command. JSOC and the SEAL team. That was also making decisions,

Did they put anyone in it? Uh, could there have been some misinterpretation of that path? And believe me, with the fog of war, there is also what we often use the term Murphy's Law.

Which is that anything can happen. It will go wrong, and if there is any ambiguity in the order and someone could misinterpret it. One of the reasons why that happens could be

And that's one thing in the military. Keep stressing it over and over again. It makes sense. Exactly what it is. And the other thing that we put a lot of emphasis on is understanding the commander's intent.

What does a commander want to do at the end of the day? What do these things look like? To make sure that there are no mistakes, to make sure that the mission was actually accomplished?

And um, you know, and and 1 cent. Mission accomplished, ship wrecked. The question is, was there an order? Which was probably lifted, however. Maybe. It resulted in the survivors being killed again.

Um, it's not absolute. I just want to be clear. Oh, it's a big deal, you know, under international law. It seems

that you have to do everything you can to salvage a shipwreck. Oh, mariners. Okay. But, going back to World War I and going back to the Hague before the Geneva Convention.

One of the problems was what about the summary rates? They're very small, and they shoot torpedoes. And when they shoot torpedoes and hit the ship,

They go under the water, they're not in a position to salvage, nobody with a special operations unit, they don't actually have the resources.

Engage in search and rescue to save someone. Is there someone who is there? That's not to say that they will, I disagree with that. Comment about 1,

You know, when we accomplish the mission, we, you know, we don't have to kill them. That's actually wrong. And he's a Navy SEAL,

But um, but I but he's actually on it, the way he said that sentence, and I understood what he was trying to say, but it wasn't like it's not exactly how it works.

And so, um, in that situation, if they were trying to completely destroy the boat and eliminate the drug load, somehow, it could have been,

Oh, an interpretation that if they had survived, they wouldn't have taken them alive. Yeah, that's a very good point. And obviously, that kind of takes us back to the fog of war

in terms of how they handle it. But as you mentioned, it's pretty clear, or when they're getting these commands back, especially from someone like Admiral Bradley,

it's clear. We'll see what happens in terms of the bipartisan investigation of that. We'll see if any more videos might be. Oh, anything on the Hawker later?

I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining live now. Okay. Thank you, Andy. Thank you very much. Okay, great. Uh, the conversation about that.

And that's not the end of this story. Associated Press You're talking about the war, let's take you back to these quick comments from the president as well as the Secretary of Defense, Pat Higgs, within this.

The cabinet meeting is talking about this follow-up. The alleged drug maintenance boat attack. They are in the Caribbean. Let's hear it.

I think you have to start with the baseline. What Marco described, and of course, in 4 years, millions of people have invaded our country, and we don't know where they're coming from.

That includes the trend, Rockwell Day. And the cartels and the violent criminals. They bring drugs, and you mentioned that. Mr. President. They killed hundreds of thousands of Americans by poisoning and deliberately poisoning the American people.

So the President dared to designate these cartels. Designated terrorist organizations. Now, many of us here served in the military

and spent 20 years on the other side of the world fighting terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Treat them. Pat them on the head, say, Don't do it again.

Or you eliminate the problem. Taking a direct lethal. Kinetic approach, and so President Trump has authorized the War Department to look at the cartels, and I wish everyone were in the room.

Our professionals are looking. Our professionals like Mitch Bradley, Admiral, Mitch Bradley, and other J, Sack, and very calm and other commanders. Deliberate action, detail.

Tough, intel, legal, evidence-based, the way we can with the means and the methods that we cannot reveal here. Make sure that every single one of these drug votes is given to a designated terrorist organization.

We know who is on it, what they are doing, what? What they are carrying is not all white bells, Santa's Christmas presents. Oh, these are drugs on 4M motor speedboats or submarines.

We also made submarines. Oh, and I have authorized them. To make this call. Now, the first couple of strikes, as you would with any leader.

Responsibility. So I said, I'll be the first to call after I get all the information and make sure it's correct. That was September. Saluto is the intelligence that goes into it.

Building the case and understanding that a lot of people are providing information. I saw that first strike lot. Oh, as you can imagine, in the war department, we have a lot of things to do.

So I didn't stay for an hour and 2 hours, whatever. Where all the sensitive site exploitation is done digitally. So I went to my next meeting. A few hours later. I found out that the commander had done what he had full authority to do,

and by the way, the admiral made the right decision. Ultimately, to sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sank the boat.