Washington: White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday tried to emphasise the depravity of Syria's use of chemical weapons on civilians, but the way he did it - by crediting Adolf Hitler with a measure of restraint - struck many journalists as confusing and insensitive.
"We didn't use chemical weapons in World War II," Spicer said. "You know, you had a - someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons."
After drawing widespread criticism, Spicer issued an apology on CNN, and emailed a statement clarifying his remarks to reporters.
Spicer seemed to be suggesting that chemical weapons are so bad that even Hitler wasn't willing to use them. It was a bizarre argument, however, given Hitler's extensive use of poison gas to kill millions of Jews and others in concentration camps.
Spicer was presumably thinking of battlefield uses of chemical weapons; even in that case, however, his version of history would be questionable. According to some accounts, the Nazis used poison gas against Russians who failed to surrender after the Battle of Kerch in the Crimean peninsula.
According to the book Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale, the Nazis in 1942 deployed poison gas into a cave city in which as many as 3000 Russians were living for months:
The Germans planted explosives around the exits from the site. Rocks and splinters rained down on the fugitives below. Then poison gas was released into the tunnels, killing all but a few score of the Soviet defenders.
The Nazis did not use chemical weapons against Western foes. Depending upon the account, though, this is either because their program wasn't sophisticated enough, they were worried about its impact on their horses, or because they feared the Allies had much more deadly chemical weapons.
Minimising Hitler's actions - even a little - represents a glaring gaffe by a White House that the press previously has scrutinised for being slow to address bomb threats against Jewish Community Centres and for failing to mention Jews, specifically, in a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Later on Tuesday, Spicer apologised and said he should not have made that comparison.
"It was a mistake. I shouldn't have done it and I won't do it again," Spicer told CNN in an interview. "It was inappropriate and insensitive."
"My goal now and then is to stay focused on Assad and I should have, and I'll make sure to stay in my lane when I talk about that."
In his CNN interview, Spicer did not directly answer when host Wolf Blitzer asked if viewers "could assume" Trump had told him to publicly apologise.
"You can assume that I realised that I had made a mistake and I did not want to be a distraction to the president's agenda," Spicer said. "When you make a mistake, you own it."
Shortly after the White House briefing, Spicer emailed a statement to reporters in response to their queries, but had stopped short of offering an explicit apology.
"In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centres. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable," Spicer said in the statement.
The US Holocaust Museum did not mention Spicer's comments directly, but sent out a tweet shortly after the briefing that showed graphic footage of dead bodies US forces found while liberating the Buchenwald concentration camp.
The video was retweeted more than a thousand times, with many Twitter users referencing Spicer's comments.
US House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called on Republican President Donald Trump to reject Spicer's assertion.
"Sean Spicer must be fired, and the President must immediately disavow his spokesman's statements," Pelosi said in a statement.
The White House did not immediately respond when asked to comment on Pelosi's statement.
Transcript of Spicer's comments
Spicer was asked about the US response to Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons in attacks in Syria last week. This is what he said:
Spicer: You look - we didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had a, you know, someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons.
So you have to, if you're Russia, ask yourself, is this a country that you, and a regime that you, want to align yourself with? You have previously signed onto international agreements rightfully acknowledging that the use of chemical weapons should be out of bounds by every country.
To not stand up to not only [inaudible] but your own word should be troubling. Russia put their name on the line, so it's not a question of how long that alliance has lasted, but at what point do they recognise that they are now getting on the wrong side of history in a really bad way, really quickly. And again, look at the countries that are standing with them: Iran, Syria, North Korea. This is not a team you want to be on.
Reporter: I need to clarify something you said that seems to be getting some traction right now. Quote: "Hitler didn't even sink to the level of using chemical weapons". What did you mean by that?
Spicer: I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Ashad [sic] is doing. I mean there was clearly - I understand your point, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. There was not in the, in the, he brought them into the Holocaust centre, I understand that. But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down into the middle of towns. So the use of it, and I appreciate the clarification there, that was not the intent.
Washington Post and Fairfax Media
