His insistence that it is his task, not the Strategic Rail Authority's, to determine the levels of investment that the railways require has not gone down well.
In the best of circumstances, says Toby Dodge of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the task of training enough Iraqi troops to withstand the current insurgency would take at least five years, probably longer.
Stephen Morrison, co-chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Sudan Task Force, argued that while such sanctions may prove an "innovative instrument, " there are too many uncertainties surrounding their use to proceed without detailed groundwork being laid.
The impression that Mr Prescott may have been given an impossible task is reinforced by the paucity of funding devoted to the new Strategic Rail Authority.
The UNESCO-Microsoft Task Force on Higher Education and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will create a strategic plan of action to identify how ICT can be used by governments as a catalyst for change.