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In some ways I understand BP's reticence to ask for help from the US or anyone, because this cleanup process will be financially abused, and terribly. But at 70 days and counting you gotta stop the oil.



My understanding is that plugging the hole is BP's responsibility because they're the ones with that expertise. The US government has no expertise in that area. All the cleanup around the well, BP may (and should) pay financially for that, but it's US and local governments doing it. And, that's where all the criticisms of incompetence (after the spill, anyway) has been. People involved in the thing know BP's part, plugging the well itself, isn't something that's known how to do with any degree of certainty.

The lack of skimmers to take the oil out of the water around the well has been a big issue. That story I linked above talks about us finally taking some from Japan. Here's another story that was going around the web a couple of days ago: Huge oil-skimming ship makes Virginia stop en route to Gulf of Mexico

They believe that thing can skim as many gallons of oil per day as have been skimmed the entire time since the spill happened. So, it's not been tested in real world situations yet. So, what? Why has it taken over 2 months to even begin looking at it as an option?

Foreign countries were offering resources within a week of that thing happening. No excuse for not even looking into it. Foreign/not, a lot of those offers could have been taken advantage of with plenty of time to ensure that we weren't being sabotaged.