US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Saturday that he backs a September 2 decision to launch a second strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean.
"I fully support that strike," Hegseth said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California. "I would have made the same call myself."
A video of the attack was shown to members of congress on Capitol Hill behind closed doors on Thursday, days after reports surfaced that the commander overseeing the operation ordered a second strike to take out two survivors to comply with Hegseth's direction that everyone should be killed.
Officials from President Donald Trump's administration have since said that Hegseth did not order the additional strike, and that Admiral Frank Bradley, who led the Joint Special Operations Command at the time, concluded the boat's wreckage must be neutralized because it contained cocaine.
Hegseth on Saturday repeated his account of the day, saying that he had seen the first strike on September 2, but then left the room to attend another meeting. He declined to say whether the administration would release the full video, saying the issue was "under review".
The September 2 attack was the first of 22 on vessels in the southern Caribbean and Pacific carried out by the US military as part of a campaign to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
The strikes have killed 87 drug traffickers, with one carried out in the eastern Pacific on Thursday.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sergio Non and Alistair Bell)
