The White House placed the decision to launch a second, follow-up Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea at the feet of the commander overseeing the operation from Fort Bragg, N.C., Navy Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley.
Bradley — who was authorized by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to carry out the attack that killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel after an initial strike — at the time was head of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
In charge of the U.S. military’s most sensitive and dangerous missions, JSOC falls under U.S. Special Operations Command, which Bradley was promoted to lead in October.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday that Hegseth authorized the second strike, which Bradley then ordered, as described in a bombshell report from The Washington Post that claimed the Pentagon chief verbally instructed the military to “kill everybody.”
“Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt told reporters.
Lawmakers from both parties, however, have questioned the second strike’s legality.
Here’s what to know about Bradley:
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He reportedly saw survivors as legitimate targets
According to the bombshell report from the Post, two people with direct knowledge of the operation said Hegseth gave a spoken directive “to kill everybody” shortly before the first missile launched from the Trinidad coast.
The missile struck the boat and set it on fire, with commanders watching from a live drone feed. Officers discovered two survivors clinging to the wreckage after the smoke cleared.
Using a secure conference call, Bradley ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s order to leave no survivors, sources told The Post.
They also said that Bradley viewed the survivors as legitimate targets as they could possibly call other traffickers to come get them and their cargo. The Trump administration has said 11 people were killed in the attack.
He’ll brief lawmakers next week
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said Bradley next week is set to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee on the September follow-up strike, which has drawn significant bipartisan scrutiny.
Warner said he and Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) are speaking on the issue and that he expects to have a preliminary conversation this week with Bradley, CNN reported.
“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this,” he said, while calling on the Trump administration to release an unedited video of the strike to help determine “whether these individuals were in the water, on the boat, still combatants or not.”
“This is not the way the system is supposed to work,” Warner said, adding that he needs to know if any of his constituents being deployed from Norfolk, Va., to the Caribbean are being put in “unsafe or illegal positions.”
He’s a Navy Seal with a long resume
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Bradley has been a U.S. Navy SEAL officer since 1992 and has commanded at all levels of special operations, according to his Navy bio.
Among the first service members to deploy into Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he has served multiple tours in command of joint task forces.
He has also served as the assistant commander of JSOC; as the J-3 Technical Operations division chief and the deputy J-3; the vice deputy director for global operations for the Joint Staff J-3; the executive officer for then-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford; and the deputy director for CT Strategy for the Joint Staff J-5.
Bradley also boasts a master’s in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
Trump keeping his distance from him
President Trump seemed initially unaware of the incident and appeared to give Hegseth cover for the order while at the same time distancing himself from it.
“No. 1, I don’t know that that happened,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday when asked whether a hypothetical second strike would be illegal. “And Pete said he did not want them — he didn’t even know what people were talking about. So, we’ll look at, we’ll look into it.”
He also said the initial strike “was fine,” but that he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike.
“The first strike was very lethal, it was fine, and if there were two people around. But [Hegseth] said that didn’t happen. I have great confidence in him,” Trump said.
“I’m going to find out about it,” he added. “But Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.”
Hegseth defended Bradley in a social media post late on Monday.
“Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support,” he wrote on the social platform X. “I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us. When this [Department of War] says we have the back of our warriors — we mean it.”
