Syria: Congress turns on John Kerry for claiming strikes would be 'unbelievably small' "I don't understand what he means by that," added Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House intelligence committee and a Republican hawk. John Noonan, a spokesman for the Republican-controlled House armed services committee said the phrase "unbelievably small" was "the type of incoherent gobbledegook you get when your foreign policy is centred around domestic politics." The confusion over the messaging of the strikes was only added to by a strange metaphor deployed by an anonymous US defence official in an interview with USA Today. Explaining US plans to degrade the regime's chemical weapons stockpiles, the official was summarised as saying: "If Assad is eating Cheerios, we're going to take away his spoon and give him a fork. The unusual comparison was soon being circulated by conservative commentators and Republicans as they mocked the White House. Meanwhile, the administration's drive to convince Congress to back President Barack Obama's plan for strikes continued at pace. Susan Rice, Mr Obama's national security adviser, was due to make the case for war in a public speech before later heading to Capitol Hill with Chuck Hagel, the defence secretary, to try to sway members of Congress. Mr Obama will also tape interviews with six US news channels this afternoon ahead of a major speech to the nation on Syria on Tuesday night. The White House's first priority is to make sure the resolution for war clears the Democrat-controlled Senate but even there administration officials were showing signs of nervousness. Mr Obama dropped in on a dinner for Republican senators last night at the house of Joe Biden, the vice president, to try to convince them to stand beside him. The unusual sight of the presidential motorcade leaving the White House on a Sunday evening to court a small group of senators underscores the uncertainty over what comes next in Congress. Mr Obama will speak to Senate Democrats, his former colleagues from his brief stint on Capitol Hill before being elected president, and plead with them not to derail his second term agenda by voting against intervention. But the White House's faces an even stiffer task convincing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives where a majority of Republicans and a large band of liberal Democrats are expected to vote no. "I think it's far too late in the House," said one Democrat aide.