White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday that President Obama’s red line against chemical weapons use is "absolutely still in place" despite U.S. inaction as the Syrian regime drops chlorine bombs on civilians.
Earnest said that the red line drawn by the president remains in place, but did not answer whether the use of chlorine bombs violated that red line.
Instead, Earnest touted the success of a 2013 deal where Syria agreed to disclose and destroy its chemical weapons stockpile after it gassed thousands of civilians in a Damascus suburb.
"What this administration did, working closely with our partners around the world, including Russia, was succeed in getting the Assad regime to acknowledge that they had a stockpile of chemical weapons," Earnest said. "We then worked with the international community to round up those weapons."
The Syrian regime gave up 1,300 tons of chemical weapons as a result of the deal, although inspectors fear that it has retained undeclared stores of VX and sarin.
Even though the regime gave up much of its chemical weapons store, it has found innovative ways to butcher its people using industrial chemicals.
One witness to a chlorine bomb attack recounted how Syrians’ houses were turned into "makeshift gas chambers" by barrel bombs dropped from regime helicopters.
President Obama has said that chlorine bomb use does not violate his red line because chlorine has not "historically" been considered a chemical weapon.
His comments have been criticized as an exercise in hair-splitting to avoid military intervention in the Middle East.
CNN’s Jim Acosta jokingly apologized for bringing up the sore subject during the Wednesday press briefing.
"I just want to go back to the red line question," Acosta said. "I know it makes people in this White House wince when I bring it up."
"I’m not wincing," Earnest responded.