United States-USDA run out of Whitewash.

UNITED STATES.

HEAD OF USDA JUSTIFIES HIS ROLE.

Ed Schafer gave a news conference last week, to outline to accomplishments of the Bush Administration.

According to Wolf Blitzer on CNN Sunday 11 January on the late edition, the whole Bush government achievements have been published in a 55 page A5 pamphlet published by the White House last week.

There are no publishers in line for the Bush Memoirs, however there is some interest in the First Lady.

As for the USDA, the debacle of the attempted cover up of the BSE in 2003 comes to mind, followed by a similar attempted cover up of bird flu in Delaware in 2004.

The meat recalls of hundreds of thousands of tons of beef, caused by bad management, lack of inspection controls and sloppy work on the part of the USDA inspectors stands out.

The salmonella in tomato’s and at this very moment at the end of his tenure, there is yet another salmonella case in peanut butter happening at this moment, for more on this www.cnn.com

Schafer mentions that Bush opened foreign markets, reality shows that in 2003, they were dumb struck by the attitude of Japan and South Korea imposing meat bans.

Persuasion, inducement and threats of trade sanctions didn’t work, as it did with Mexico.

While the US beef markets went down the drain, President bush was on an aircraft carrier, below a banner saying mission accomplished.

Brazil were successful in claiming US$4 billion in trade sanctions against the Unites States in relation to cotton subsidies, Europe still refuse to allow chlorine washed chicken and hormone treated beef into the EU 27 countries.

The legacy could be called very fittingly "Swagger to Stagger", as even South Korea and Taiwan can now dictate to the United States and the Russians can say, clean up your slaughterhouses as they remove the export license from 19 US plants.

Two weeks ago Mexico said clean up your act, as they removed 30 plants from the approved plants to export to Mexico.

Poor old Ed Schafer, would be wise to say little about his legacy to the meat and farming industry, let history be the judge.

The days of the USDA being able to walk on water appear to be over, they have lost all credibility in the eyes of the world meat trade, there have been 17 violations of health acts in relation to South Korea since May 2008

A meat re-call nearly every week of the tenure of Ed Schafer, not a legacy that one would really want to remember no matter what spin is put on the reality.