Was the Coast Guard Partly to Blame for the Oil Spill?

Now this would seriously suck if it turns out to be the truth.

The Coast Guard is not supposed to participate in firefighting, but instead assign an expert to coordinate the private firefighting efforts of the rig operator and its contractors. The Coast Guard failed to do so, and the result was an uncoordinated, “general response” effort that mainly relied on salt water to extinguish the fires. That is not the most effective way to fight rig fires; the best way is to use foam, which apparently wasn’t on hand. An expert would have known this, but as CPI’s report of the testimony shows, none was assigned:

I wonder if they had this expert on hand he could have stopped the ships from using sea water to fight the fire. I'm not sure where they could have gotten the foam ships in time. Also the Obama White House cut their budget so the Coast Guard themselves had no way of fighting the fire only experts that could coordinate the effort.

One thing I did notice was that there sure was a lot of scrutiny on what BP is doing to cap the well but there was almost no news on the fire fighting response. I assumed that they didn't want to blame the brave people that scrambled ships to shoot salt water on the fire but maybe it was sue to a "cover the ass" effort by the White House.

If the Coast Guard didn't follow correct procedure because the couldn't pay a rig fire fighting expert due to budget cuts then that is a big deal and needs to be investigated. Also how far away were fire fighting ships that had foam aboard and why were they not involved in the effort?