Admiral Frank M. Bradley – who was in charge of the September 2, 2025 mission in which the U.S. military killed two shipwrecked survivors of a boat strike in the Caribbean Sea — is being left out to dry by President Donald Trump's administration, according to multiple experts.
The New York Times' Helene Cooper and John Ismay reported Tuesday that recent comments from Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt all suggest that Bradley is being cast as the central figure in the controversial strike. The Washington Post reported that after the initial missile strike that blew up a boat in international waters, the two survivors were seen clinging to the wreckage of the vessel, and that Hegseth demanded officials overseeing the operation "kill everybody." Dan Maurer, retired U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) officer, characterized the operation as "murder."
Hegseth previously said that he watched the strike unfold in real time, though clarified during Tuesday's Cabinet meeting that he "didn't stick around" to see the secondary strike. Trump said that he "wouldn't have wanted" the subsequent strike, and Leavitt said from the White House Briefing Room lectern that Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to carry out the strikes.
"The public comments of the president, Mr. Hegseth and Ms. Leavitt all leave Admiral Bradley exposed," Cooper and Ismay wrote.
In a post to his X account, Hegseth maintained that Bradley was overseeing the operation, but praised his decision-making. Carrie A. Lee, who is the former chair of the department of national security and strategy at the Army War College, suggested that Trump and Hegseth were demonstrating poor leadership by pointing the finger at Bradley.
"For the top two civilians in the Pentagon and the White House to effectively wash their hands of it and claim no responsibility, while simultaneously saying that they stand by the decision, goes against any kind of ideas of responsible command," Lee told the Times.
Lee added that the president and the defense secretary were "trying to walk this middle line where you are saying, 'Well, I agree with his decisions, but if they violated the law, then we’re going to leave him swinging.'"
Hegseth said in his initial statement following the Post's report that the strike was "lawful under both U.S. and international law," and that all operations were "approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command." But now that both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are conducting official inquiries with the Department of Defense about the attack, Duke University political science professor Peter D. Feaver said Admiral Bradley could find himself caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the legality of his orders.
“What’s at stake here is not just the legal position of a single officer, but the larger ethic of the professional soldier,” Feaver told the Times. “The question is: How do officers deal with an order that an administration says is lawful but that most of the lawyers outside the U.S. government say is not? This current case brings that question into sharp relief.”
Click here to read the Times' report in full.
