Pentagon Watchdog Stalls Proposal to Review Targeting in Trump's Boat Strikes [View all]

Source: New York Times

Feb. 28, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET


The Pentagon’s new inspector general has frozen a proposal to evaluate military targeting in the Trump administration’s strikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine from South America, telling his staff he wanted to consult department leadership before deciding whether the review should go forward, The New York Times has learned. The inspector general, Platte B. Moring III, also said to staff members at a Feb. 11 meeting that the proposed project sounded as if it could become highly political, according to a person briefed on the exchange.

Since then, the project has remained in limbo, with Mr. Moring neither approving nor rejecting it. The proposal, developed by a unit of the office that assesses compliance, would examine whether the U.S. Southern Command has established and followed targeting practices and procedures in attacking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. Since September, the military has carried out 44 strikes on boats it says were suspected of smuggling drugs, killing 150 people.

The project’s fate has emerged as an early test of Mr. Moring’s tenure and of the independence of the watchdog system. Congress created the inspectors general in the post-Watergate era, charging them with hunting for waste, fraud, abuse and illegality inside the executive branch, even at the risk of embarrassing or irritating agency leaders.

Days after taking office last year, President Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general, including the Pentagon’s watchdog, Robert Storch. The mass purge raised a pointed question: whether the replacement inspectors general would act independently or see themselves as part of his administration’s political team.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/trump-boat-strikes-pentagon.html