President Obama is the Problem and not the Solution
The Transocean Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico has now become a very serious and complicated issue indeed.The exact causes of and responsibility for the disaster are not yet know so it is wrong of anyone, including particularly the President of the USA, to leap to conclusions, prejudge the issue and prejudice any subsequent legal proceedings.Mr Obama as a graduate of the Harvard Law School should know this even though his practical legal experience is very limited. I am sure BP's lawyers are studying his statements with interest.Some of the statements made by BP's CEO Tony Hayward have been clumsy and insensitive but it needs to be borne in mind he is a geologist by profession and not a lawyer, politician or spin doctor. In retrospect it would have been better to let one of BP's senior US executives such as Lamar MacKay or Bob Dudley do the talking.BP has accepted its responsibilities and mobilised massive resources of people, vessels, equipment, material, knowledge and skill to deal with this very serious problem.The US Government or any other Government simply does not have the resources to deal with this. President Obama knows this, realises that he is impotent in this respect and instead of calming down and working with BP and others to solve the problem, has done what he knows best- mounted a highly political and chauvinist campaign against BP. As a consequence, millions of US, UK and other shareholders in BP and people whose pension funds have invested in BP have seen the value of their investment and pensions plummet. Tens of thousands of BP employees, contractors and suppliers fear for their jobs and the oil industry worldwide has been severely affected.I hope that David Cameron will have a word with Barack Obama this weekend and tell him to calm down and stop attacking BP and, by implication, Britain.
David Giles ● 5805d14 Comments