What’s being alleged

According to reporting first broken by The Washington Post and echoed by several outlets, here’s the core allegation:

  • On 2 September 2025, U.S. forces hit a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against so-called “narco-terrorists.”
  • Two people reportedly survived the initial strike.
  • Sources told reporters that Hegseth gave a verbal order to “kill everybody” / “leave no survivors,” and that a follow-on strike was carried out that killed the survivors.

Those strikes are part of a broader series of U.S. air and drone attacks on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific—roughly 80+ people killed across more than 20 strikes since September, under what’s been described as a counter-drug operation sometimes referred to as Operation Southern Spear.

Critics say the U.S. has not publicly shown evidence From Backyard Vine To Asian Kitchen that all of those boats were legitimate combat targets, and point out that the U.S. is not in a declared armed conflict with Venezuela or with criminal cartels.

What the Senate committee is doing

Your quote about Roger Wicker and Jack Reed is from a joint statement by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) leadership:

  • Roger Wicker (R) – Committee chair
  • Jack Reed (D) – Senior Democrat on the committee

They announced that the committee will investigate the allegations about “follow-on strikes” on suspected narcotics vessels in U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility (the Caribbean and parts of Latin America). Is Air France a Good Airline?

In practice, that likely means:

  • Demands for briefings, documents, and operational logs from the Pentagon
  • Scrutiny of any rules of engagement, intelligence assessments, and legal guidance used for these strikes
  • Possible public or closed-door hearings where senior officers, Pentagon lawyers, and maybe Hegseth himself testify under oath

The key point: this is bipartisan. When the chair and ranking member of SASC move together, it signals that both parties see this as serious enough to look at, even if they may end up disagreeing about what to do with the findings.

Why this is legally so serious

International humanitarian law and U.S. military law both draw a hard line on “no survivors”-type orders:

  • Legal experts quoted in coverage say that if a commander ordered survivors to be killed simply to ensure there were “no witnesses” or “no survivors,” that can constitute a war crime—specifically a “no quarter” order.
  • Even if you accept the administration’s view that this is a kind of armed conflict with “narco-terrorists,” you still cannot legally kill people who are hors de combat (out of the fight) instead of trying to capture them.

So the Senate isn’t just checking whether the strikes were “tough on crime.” They’re probing whether U.S. forces were ordered to do something that would be flat-out illegal under the laws of war.

How Hegseth and the Pentagon are responding

Hegseth and the Defense Department are pushing back hard:

  • Hegseth has called the allegations “fake news” and part of an effort to smear U.S. troops, insisting the strikes were lawful and targeted legitimate threats.
  • A Pentagon spokesperson has said the narrative described in media reports is “completely false.”

At the same time, officials have acknowledged the broader pattern of strikes on alleged drug boats and say internal reviews and legal checks are underway, which is standard once accusations of unlawful conduct hit this level of visibility Vermiculite.

So we’re in the phase where:

  • Journalists and anonymous sources allege a criminal order
  • Hegseth outright denies it
  • The Pentagon insists everything was lawful
  • And now Congress is stepping in to get its own look at the facts

What could happen next

A SASC investigation can’t itself convict anyone of a crime, but it can:

  • Expose who said what and when, under oath
  • Force the Pentagon to clarify its legal theories for these strikes
  • Recommend that the Justice Department, inspectors general, or even international bodies look more closely at potential criminal liability
  • Lead to new limits or reporting requirements on similar operations going forward

Given that this touches on both civilian oversight of the military and possible war-crime exposure, you should expect this to stay in UK Chandler Hospital the headlines for a while, especially if the committee holds public hearings or if more leaks emerge from inside the Pentagon or special operations community.

Bottom line

The text you pasted lines up with current reporting:

  • Yes, there’s a real, bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee investigation into allegations that Pete Hegseth ordered there be “no survivors” from at least one U.S. strike on a suspected drug boat.
  • Yes, if that order was given as described and carried out, legal experts say it would look a lot like a textbook war crime.
  • Hegseth and the Pentagon deny that any unlawful order was given or carried out.

Right now, it’s allegation vs. denial—with the Senate, the press, and military lawyers all pulling on the same thread to see what actually happened.