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Geezer - yes, I agree that the buck stops with BP. They were overall responsible for the rig, and apparently were caught napping by a catastrophe. And it's obvious even from the information currently available that this is not a no-blame situation, I hope I didn't appear to suggest that it was because it's self-evidently a stupid attitude. On the other hand there are two important things which must be done in the event of any bad thing happening. One is fixing the mess, and the buck of responsibility stops with BP (even if, in the strict legal sense, it shouldn't.. because someone screwed up). But as important is the matter of preventing future disasters, and that absolutely mustn't be a matter for BP and Transocean to sort out for themselves - it needs to be a proper independent enquiry conducted with legally mandated access to the full paper trail and all the (surviving) personel involved. I don't know what provision the American system has for proper independent inquiries, but presumably there's an equivalent of a public inquiry in the UK...
If this sounds like America bashing I'm sorry, but I suspect if Transocean had been the British company and BP the US company, the media and government pressure in attributing blame might have looked somewhat different.
Geezer - yes, I agree that the buck stops with BP. They were overall responsible for the rig, and apparently were caught napping by a catastrophe. And it's obvious even from the information currently available that this is not a no-blame situation, I hope I didn't appear to suggest that it was because it's self-evidently a stupid attitude. On the other hand there are two important things which must be done in the event of any bad thing happening. One is fixing the mess, and the buck of responsibility stops with BP (even if, in the strict legal sense, it shouldn't.. because someone screwed up). But as important is the matter of preventing future disasters, and that absolutely mustn't be a matter for BP and Transocean to sort out for themselves - it needs to be a proper independent enquiry conducted with legally mandated access to the full paper trail and all the (surviving) personel involved. I don't know what provision the american system has for proper independent inquiries, but presumably there's an equivalent of a public inquiry in the UK...
Anyway, is the UK media being even handed, or is it not?