WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth left the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 30 without clarifying whether he stood by his March 13 declaration that U.S. forces would show “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in Iran — a phrase that legal experts and at least one senator argue constitutes a violation of the laws of armed conflict.
The exchange unfolded during an open hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the FY2027 defense budget request, held at 11:00 a.m. in SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Hegseth testified alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine and Acting DoD Comptroller Jules Hurst III. It was his second consecutive day of congressional testimony — he had also appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on April 29 — and the second day he faced direct questions about the phrase without addressing its legal implications.
The Statement That Started It
Hegseth’s “no quarter, no mercy” declaration appears in the official Department of War transcript of a March 13 Pentagon press briefing on Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-led military campaign against Iran. In a statement from the Pentagon podium, Hegseth said: “We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”
The remark drew immediate attention from legal scholars, former military lawyers, and members of Congress. Under Section 5.4.7 of the Department of Defense Law of War Manual — the Pentagon’s own authoritative guide to the laws of armed conflict — the prohibition is explicit: “It is forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given. This means that it is prohibited to order that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed.” The manual further prohibits threatening the adversary with the denial of quarter, meaning the declaration itself — made from an official podium in an official briefing — may constitute a violation regardless of any subsequent battlefield action.
The prohibition has roots stretching back to the 1863 Lieber Code, the first modern codification of the laws of war issued by President Lincoln. The 1907 Hague Convention — to which the United States is a party — explicitly forbids the declaration. After World War II, a U.S. military tribunal convicted senior German officers for this offense. The prohibition is also codified as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute, according to analysis by the Lieber Institute at West Point.
The Pentagon did not issue a clarifying statement after the March 13 briefing, and the transcript was not amended or annotated.
What Happened at the Hearing
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) — a retired Navy Captain who flew 39 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm from the deck of USS Midway and earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses, according to his official Senate biography — opened his questioning by reading the DoD Law of War Manual’s definition of “no quarter” directly into the record.
“It’s my understanding that the definition of ‘no quarter’ is that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused, or that detainees will be executed,” Kelly said. “Is that your understanding of the definition?”
Hegseth redirected rather than answer. “The only entity that would kill detainees or target civilians is the Iranians, and they’re the ones being crushed,” he said.
Kelly pressed again: “Do you understand the definition that I just read you? Because that’s the definition from your department’s law of war manual.”
“We fight to win and we follow the law, Senator,” Hegseth replied.
Kelly then gave Hegseth a direct opportunity to either stand by or retract the March 13 statement. “Your quote was, ‘We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,'” Kelly said. “Yesterday you did not clarify whether you stand by this statement. So I’m going to give you another opportunity to clarify if that is what you meant.”
Hegseth’s response: “We have untied the hands of our warfighters. We fight to win, and we follow the law.”
“So you’re not clarifying, so you stand by that statement,” Kelly said. “You’re the Secretary of Defense. The things you say matter, and your response here right now makes it clear to the American people exactly why you are not right for this job.”
Hegseth replied: “It makes it clear to our enemy, Senator.”
Three Interpretations — and Their Legal Weight
Legal scholars have identified three ways to read Hegseth’s original statement. The most charitable is that he used “no quarter” as a colloquial expression of resolve, without knowing its legal meaning — what one analyst described as careless but not criminal. A second reading is that he understood the legal definition but intended the phrase purely as psychological pressure on Iranian forces — a threat, in other words, rather than an order. Under the DoD Law of War Manual, even this reading constitutes a prohibited act. A third and most serious reading is that the statement was intended as a directive to U.S. forces, which would be a textbook violation of the law of war.
What each interpretation shares is the absence of a public clarification from Hegseth or the Pentagon — and it is that silence, now spanning more than six weeks and three opportunities to address it on the record, that has sustained the controversy.
Hegseth’s Broader Posture
Throughout the hearing, Hegseth maintained that the administration has “untied the hands” of U.S. warfighters and that Operation Epic Fury has been conducted within the law. The March 13 briefing transcript shows him describing the scale of U.S. strikes — over 15,000 enemy targets struck in the first 13 days — while emphasizing that Iran’s military had been effectively destroyed across air, sea, and missile domains. His framing throughout the Iran conflict has been one of aggressive, unapologetic warfighting — a posture that has broad support among conservatives but has drawn sustained criticism from legal experts and Democrats who argue it risks normalizing rhetoric that undermines the rules-based framework the U.S. military itself built and has long enforced.
The FY2027 budget hearing was, on paper, about a $1.5 trillion defense spending request. In practice, on April 30, it became something else: a public test of whether the Secretary of Defense would acknowledge the legal obligations his own department’s manual imposes — and whether anyone would hold him to account for declining to do so.