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2010-06-08 08:54:38
US President Barack Obama has strongly criticised BP's chief executive Tony
Hayward over the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In an interview with NBC, Mr Obama was asked about comments Mr Hayward made in
the wake of the disaster, such as "I want my life back" and the Gulf is "a big
ocean".
Mr Obama said: "He wouldn't be working for me after any of those statements."
He said he had visited the Louisiana coast "so I know whose ass to kick".
The interview on NBC's Today show is to be broadcast later on Tuesday.
Mr Obama used the interview to defend his role in dealing with the crisis.
Polls suggest that many Americans think he has handled the disaster poorly.
The president has made three visits to the oil-hit coast since the disaster
started in late April, talking to fishermen and oil spill experts.
Continue reading the main story US President Barack Obama Obama's opinion
ratings tracked
"I was down there a month ago before most of these talking heads were even
paying attention to the Gulf," Mr Obama told NBC.
"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar,
we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers - so I
know whose ass to kick," he said.
Mr Obama told reporters he was committed to seeing the Gulf region restored to
a condition better than it was before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and
sank on 20 April, killing 11 workers.
The leaking wellhead is currently spewing out between 12,000 and 24,000 barrels
of oil per day. Some 11,000 barrels of oil are being trapped by a containment
cap.
'Nasty calls'
Meanwhile, police are protecting Mr Hayward's family at their home in Kent in
southern England after they received hate mail and threatening phone calls.
Maureen Hayward told the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, about the
growing hostility towards her and their two children.
Continue reading the main story
BP needs to tell whining Americans to take a hike
Bloomberg Matthew Lynn Read more commentators' views
"Members of my family have had nasty phone calls and we have also had mail from
groups," she was quoted as saying.
"Tony is obviously away and we are miles away from him so it's upsetting," she
said.
There is an "ongoing police operation" involving Mr Hayward's family home, the
newspaper quoted local police sources as saying.
BP - and in particular Mr Hayward - has received widespread criticism over the
handling of the spill. At one point, Mr Hayward said "the environmental impact
of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest".
The New York Daily News has called him "the most hated and clueless man in
America".
Long-term damage
Meanwhile, US Coast Guard chief Adm Thad Allen has said that cleaning up
marshlands would take a long time.
A marine reef ecologist tries to remove oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill
off his hands Tar balls are continuing to wash ashore on beaches and wetlands
Adm Allen, the co-ordinator of the clean-up operation, told reporters it would
take "a couple of months" to clear the oil slick from the surface of the Gulf.
But he said: "Long-term issues of restoring environments and habitats will be
years."
He said BP needed to do better at getting money to people and businesses
affected by the spill.
He said that while BP had nearly doubled the amount of oil being funnelled from
the leaking wellhead since Friday, it was now "trying to increase that
production rate, close the venting valves and move to a greater capacity".
He said BP was hoping to move a second production platform into the area to
increase the amount of oil that could be siphoned off.
Adm Allen added that BP was also preparing a bigger rig to process a greater
capacity of oil in severe weather. The region's hurricane season started last
week.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs warned, however, that collecting oil through
the containment cap fixed over the leaking well remained a risky operation.
BP said on Monday that the cost of its response to the disaster in the Gulf had
reached about $1.25bn ( 860m).
This number does not include $360m for a project to build six sand berms to
protect Louisiana's wetlands from the spreading oil, BP has said.
Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill has been found on beaches and wetlands
along more than 100 miles (161 km) of coast from Louisiana to the Florida
Panhandle.