Former Obama administration national security advisor Susan Rice maxed out on the Washington Post’s fact checking scale Monday morning, earning a full four Pinocchios for her recent statements about the removal of chemical weapons from Syria.
In a January interview with National Public Radio, Rice, who cited the the Syrian civil war as her “biggest disappointment,” said of the administration’s negotiations with the country, “We were able to find a solution that didn’t necessitate the use of force that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria, in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished.”
She continued, “We were able to get the Syrian government to voluntarily and verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile.”
In response to the requests of “many readers,” the Post published a fact check of Rice’s statement on Monday, concluding that it deserved all four out of four Pinocchios on its scale designed to measure the truthfulness of remarks made by leaders.
“The Obama administration had a tendency to oversell what was accomplished, perhaps because Obama received so much criticism for not following through on an attack if Syria crossed what Obama had called ‘a red line,'” the Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote.
“We have a reasonable-person test here at The Fact Checker, and it’s doubtful many NPR listeners realized that ‘known’ was code for the fact that Rice only was referring to chemical weapons stocks declared by Syria — or that chlorine weapons were not covered by the agreement,” Kessler continued.
The dishonor of receiving four out of four Pinocchios, according to the Post, is reserved only for “whoppers.”
As the Trump administration escalates its efforts to intervene in the Syrian civil war, expect his predecessor’s actions to face heightened scrutiny.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
