WASHINGTON
\nDonald Trump\u2019s top national security officials faced a grilling from senators Tuesday on US strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific \u2014 operations that have raised alarms about escalating military force near Venezuela.
\nThe classified briefing, led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, comes amid mounting unease in Congress over the president\u2019s widening campaign in waters off Latin America, and as lawmakers weigh measures to curb Trump\u2019s authority to act without their approval.
\n\u201cI have a lot of questions. What\u2019s our end game, and strategy?\u201d Democratic Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal told AFP ahead of the briefing.
\n\u201cWhy are we killing people on these boats? What are they carrying? Where are they heading? Who\u2019s behind them? And I think the American people \u2014 not just senators \u2014 deserve to hear from both Hegseth and Rubio.\u201d
\nUS officials say the operations target narcotics bound for American shores.
\nCritics counter that the campaign \u2014 which has destroyed at least 26 boats and killed at least 95 people, according to US military figures \u2014 is legally ambiguous and strategically unclear.
\nThe briefing, which will also feature Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine, precedes a possible Senate vote on resolutions aimed at restricting Trump from launching military action against Venezuela without congressional consent.
\nBeyond the boat strikes, the administration has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro \u2014 deploying warships and aircraft near his coastline, seizing an oil tanker linked to Caracas, and slapping fresh sanctions on Maduro\u2019s family and business allies.
\nTrump has declared that Maduro\u2019s \u201cdays are numbered\u201d and pointedly refused to rule out a US ground invasion.
\nThe strikes have drawn particular scrutiny over a September 2 operation in which US forces carried out a second attack on a disabled boat, killing two survivors of the initial strike.
\nOpioid crisis
\nSenators from both parties say they will demand answers on the legal basis for that attack and why Congress has been denied full access to video footage, which so far has been shown only to a handful of senior lawmakers.
\nSenate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has demanded that the administration provide every senator with the complete, unedited tapes, warning that secrecy \u2014 combined with the presence of US troops and a carrier group in the region \u2014 risks dragging the country into another open-ended conflict.
\nSome Republicans, including Senator Rand Paul, have also questioned whether targeting shipwrecked suspects violates international law.
\nLegal experts say the case highlights a central tension in Trump\u2019s approach \u2014 treating drug trafficking as an act of war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON Donald Trump\u2019s top national security officials faced a grilling from senators Tuesday on US strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific \u2014 operations that have raised alarms about escalating military force near Venezuela. The classified briefing, led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, comes amid mounting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-520620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n