By Gary Taylor

May 23 - US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar angrily denounced BP on May 23 and vowed to force the company to meet its deadlines for killing its runaway Macondo exploration well in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I am angry and frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this well from leaking," said Salazar during an afternoon press briefing outside BP's Houston headquarters.

He followed the lead of Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen in comparing the Macondo effort with the the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission and said the Obama administration is enlisting a "team of all-stars" that includes space agency experts to help solve the crisis.

"If there is a way to kill the well, they will find it," Salazar said.

He promised to "keep a boot on BP's neck."

Salazar criticized the company for failing to meet its previous schedules for procedures to kill the well and said: "There's a new schedule for this week, and we want it met."

BP executives have said they plan to begin their so-called "top kill" effort by late Tuesday while working simultaneously on additional procedures in case top kill fails to work.

The top kill procedure involves injection of heavy drilling fluids and cement into the choke-and-kill lines of Macondo's malfunctioning blowout preventer in an effort to clog the well.

If top kill fails, BP has said it has another clogging procedure called the "junk shot" to try. The company also is studying the possibility of installing a new BOP above the original unit.

But the company has said the only certain solution involves completion of relief wells currently drilling in two locations with a goal of intercepting the original well by August.

The crisis began April 20 with a blowout at Macondo in 4,993 feet of water about 40 miles from Venice, Louisiana. The eruption and fire destroyed Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and created an oil spill that has threatened the Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana with crude continuing to leak from the Macondo wellhead at an estimated rate of 5,000 b/d.

Adding to the urgency, TV airwaves were filled May 23 with video of scenes from oil-polluted beaches and Gulf waters in and around Louisiana.

While emphasizing the difficult challenge of trying to stop the runaway well in such great water depths, Salazar said: "BP has not fulfilled the mission they were supposed to fill. It was never supposed to have happened in the first place."