22 days after the obama care website was rolled out like a new car with flat tires and no engine, the administration is launching an all-out tech surge to fix the clunker. health secretary kathleen sebelius says this will include outside experts, including veterans of top silicon valley companies. cnn is learning some new stunning details about the launch. there were warnings from the start that this rollout could be a bust and is it possible that no one was really in charge? cnn's joe johns is standing by with that part of the story. but let's begin with our senior white house correspondent, brianna keilar. what's the latest on the obama care website problems? >> reporter: hi, wolf. well, jeff zience, whose name i know you recognize, former administration official is the chief performance officer, he was the acting omb director as well as one of the president's top economic advisors, and he also has a lot of private sector

experience. he is a former ceo and we have learned that he is bringing or being brought in, really, to help through this troubled period with the website and with the continued rollout of obama care. we also had heard from health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius that a number of other people, names we do not know, but we are told that they are folks inside of government as well as government contractors, including we understand veterans of top silicon valley companies, being brought in. there's still a lot of unanswered questions, though. for instance, when this is going to be fixed, how much it will cost to fix it, how much that will cost taxpayers and also whether this may delay that individual mandate, that penalty that folks will have to pay if they don't have insurance. the white house clearly not wanting to box themselves in on those questions. they prefer, white house press secretary jay carney said, not to monday morning quarterback but to fix the problem.

here's more of what he said. >> you'll get no argument from me or anyone else here that there are problems and there were problems that need to be addressed, and we're improving the experience for consumers every day, and we won't rest until americans who want to get more information about the affordable health care options available to them through the website are able to do that smoothly and are able to register and sign up. >> reporter: so many headlines around this right now, wolf. of course, the political, you have republican chairman of the house oversight committee, chairman issa, who has sent a letter to the office of management and budget wondering, really asking if politics played a role in the fact that initially people had to register for the website before they could see the pricing. that has since changed. we have also been hearing calls, of course, for secretary sebelius to step down as well as there are hearings coming up on thursday and we're expect that she will testify next week.

some lighter headlines as well, though. some state exchanges getting rather creative as they try to promote their product. in colorado, one of the campaigns that they're launching is called brosurance. picture of somewhat look like frat brothers and it says keg stands are crazy, not having health insurance is crazier. don't tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. we got it covered. so it shows you the white house sort of straddling between trying to pitch this product and really address all the criticisms and frustrations with it. >> are they open to this notion that the decision to bring jeff zience, who is going to be the new head of the national economic council once gene spurling leaves in a couple months, to really help out in this, that that's sort of a vote of no confidence in the existing team that's been in charge of this rollout? >> reporter: you know, they're not certainly putting it that way, wolf. i think what they're acknowledging tacitly in this move is they need more help than they have now, and they will point certainly to the fact that

he has private and public sector experience. but it's sort of an acknowledgment i think that they need some help in what they're doing right now. >> yeah. and the president was ominously silent yesterday in the big event in the rose garden, yet kathleen sebelius sitting there in the front row, he never mentioned her once during those entire remarks which was pretty surprising to me. there she is right there, sitting next to dennis mcdonnough, white house chief of staff and valerie jarrett, you would have thought he would say something about her. she's in charge of this entire obama care rollout and everything else involving that. we'll see what happens on that front. brianna, thanks very much. who could have foreseen that the obama care website rollout would be such a fiasco? lots of people apparently inside had serious, serious doubts. joe johns is working this part of the story. you're learning there were plenty of concerns, lots of warnings that apparently weren't heeded, joe. what happened? >> reporter: that's certainly true.

so why is it that the government missed the red flags indicating the rollout of the healthcare.gov website would be such a flop. much of the finger pointing right now is on cms, the centers for medicare and medicaid services, and their role in the project. sources in and outside the government who spoke to cnn blame the problems with the website on a variety of issues leading up to the launch, especially the lack of a true point person. a true project manager who could give cms what one insider called a no b.s. assessment of how imperfect the rollout would be. the white house is hoping to solve that problem by naming a fixer, business whiz jeff zience. >> he's an expert in the field of effective management and hhs will be tapping his experience and expertise as they address the challenges that have come up with the administration of the website. >> reporter: what may have made the rollout worse was failure to manage expectations.

sources said they were aware of capacity problems. when confronted with reality that the website was going to underperform, a source said higher-ups circled the wagons, overpromising that any glitches wouldn't be that bad. in fact, the health and human services secretary was actually on cnn downplaying the capacity problems on the day the website rolled out. >> i think the volume related issues are ones that we welcome, frankly. it shows how many people are eager to get real information. >> reporter: a source familiar with the situation tells cnn a subsidiary of verizon has been working on the website's network capacity issues. as far as the website itself goes, sources said the government did not know what it wanted in the first place and kept changing the goalpost or revising the plan on website design, making it extremely difficult for multiple contractors to deliver a product. but a former member of the president's technology team says contractors shouldn't escape blame, either. >> i had a feeling that healthcare.gov wasn't going to

go the way that everyone wanted back in february. but the only reason i had that feeling is because if you look at the history of federal i.t. projects, they almost always result in failure. >> reporter: clay johnson says the government should stop naming huge companies to do new technology projects and hire smaller, more agile companies. we asked verizon for a statement for this story and they declined to comment. wolf? >> what a story it is. joe, thanks very much. up next, how the shutdown will impact your taxes. we have important new information that will affect when you file your taxes with the irs. stay with us for that. and get this. could there be a cure for baldness in sight? a new study reveals a promising development. we have the details of that as well. no matter how busy your morning you can always do something better for yourself.

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administering her medication, and just making her comfortable. one night britta told me about a tradition in denmark, "when a person dies," she said, "someone must open the window so the soul can depart." i smiled and squeezed her hand. "not tonight, britta. not tonight." [ female announcer ] to nurses everywhere, thank you, from johnson & johnson. more fallout today from the government shutdown. the internal revenue service says it will delay the start of the tax filing season for a week or two. cnn's alison kosik is joining us from the new york stock exchange. what's the reason for this? does this mean tax filers will

get some extra time? >> reporter: extra time, i have to laugh about that. this is the irs. i doubt they would ever give extra time and this includes this time, either, as well. the deadline is going to stay the same. april 15th for your filing, has to be in by april 15th. this warning that you're talking about is for the early birds. these are people who file their returns as soon as they can, many of them are looking forward to getting refunds so they like to file early. the irs is going to begin taking these tax returns sometime between january 28th and february 4th. previously it was on january 21st. the official date is going to be announced in december. why is this happening? why else. the shutdown. so it came at the time of the year when the irs is busy preparing the tax system. they are processing 150 million tax returns. that's a huge undertaking so what happens is in the fall, they begin testing the system out, updating it. they didn't get a chance to do that because they didn't come to work to do it. >> alison, also delayed by the

shutdown, the release of the september jobs report. that came out this morning, 148,000 jobs added. that's less than the month before, less than anticipated. but the unemployment rate fell from 7.3% to 7.2%. so it's sort of a mixed report. how are people seeing it? >> reporter: yeah. i mean, first the good stuff. the unemployment rate fell and it fell for a good reason. because people are finding work, not just dropping out of the labor force, something we saw in the earlier reports. that's where they weren't counted. so there's good news there that the unemployment rate fell. look at this. it's slow, the job growth, i'm talking about. it hasn't budged for three years. this is where the problem is. you look this year, we're averaging about 178,000 jobs being added per month. last year, it was 183,000. guess what 2011 was? about the same. only adding about 175,000 jobs on average per month. so what you should really be seeing are these bars on the screen there growing, not staying at the same height, which is pretty much what they're doing. so what's happening is not

enough people are getting jobs to bring down the unemployment rate as fast as we'd like. >> good point. alison, so if it's not a great jobs report, why do wall street numbers keep going up and up and up? >> reporter: because they like the report because of the headline numbers, but because of what they mean, meaning the way wall street sees things, it's sort of bad news is good news for wall street. the way that wall street thinks is they expect the fed stimulus to continue, meaning the fed stimulus where the fed is pouring billions of dollars of money into the economy, propping up the stock market. so many here on wall street are thinking these numbers were pretty weak so the fed is going to continue -- >> looks like we just lost alison kosik. we will connect with her. you got the gist of what she was saying. she's at the new york stock exchange. the latest job numbers, by the way, do not include the 16-day government shutdown and its aftermath.

does that mean we can expect a weaker employment report when october's numbers come out? i put that question to jayson furman, chairman of the white house council of economic advisors. >> we have some initial indications about october. we know that unemployment insurance claims were declining steadily up until the shutdown, but then they jumped up 50,000. we know gallup does an index that's a pretty good measure of job creation. that also was doing decently before the shutdown and it took a big blow in the first half of october. >> what does it mean that there are 852,000, nearly a million so-called discouraged workers who have simply given up hope of getting a job? >> wolf, there's a number of different ways that we measure the unemployment rate. the official measure has fallen from 10% at its peak pretty steadily down to 7.2% now. there are broader measures of unemployment that count those discouraged workers as unemployed, count people working

part-time for economic reasons as unemployed. those broader measures have also declined at roughly the same pace, if not a faster pace. so no matter how you're looking at the labor market, you see the same story, which is broad improvement over the last couple years, but a lot more needs to be done, and more needs to be done in terms of policies to get us there. >> much more on this story coming up later this hour. also, other news we're following, including a potential breakthrough in the search for a cure for baldness. we have details of a surprising new study just ahead. and scores of raging wildfires tearing across australia. authorities fear the worst is still to come. we'll have the latest for you. stay with us. you're in "the situation room." ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ hooking up the country helping business run ♪ ♪ trains! they haul everything, safely and on time. ♪ tracks! they connect the factories built along the lines. and that means jobs, lots of people, making lots and lots of things. let's get your business rolling now, everybody sing.

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here's a look at some of the other top stories we're monitoring right now in "the situation room." extraordinary pictures out of australia where authorities are bracing for the worst. scores of wildfires, some 1,000 miles long, tearing across its most populated state. officials say they are bringing in another 1500 firefighters to join the 1,000 emergency crews

already on the ground. officials expect tomorrow to be as bad as it gets. nearly 300,000 acres have already been torched. more than 200 homes, destroyed. schools, major roads and an airport in northeastern china remain closed amid a filthy cloud of smog engulfing much of the region. pollution levels are well above international standards right now. government officials are blaming conditions on too little wind, farmers burning crop stalks from their autumn harvest. investigators are said to be looking at ten missing children cases from countries including the united states in connection with a suspected kidnapping of a mystery child in greece. authorities have charged a roma or gypsy couple with the abduction although they say she was adopted. the child, being called maria, is believed to be 5 or 6 according to medical tests. take a good look at this shot of the capitol dome right now, because it's about to undergo an estimated $60 million renovation. its first in more than 50 years, due to age and weather.

the building is said to be plagued by more than 1,000 cracks and deficiencies. the project which is set to begin next month is expect ted take about two years, will involve plenty of scaffolding before its completion. and take a look at this. this is the ohio state marching band performing at halftime, a michael jackson tribute. if you watch closely, you can see the band forming into the king of pop's profile complete with the white glove, slowly moonwalking down the field. they're playing plenty of michael jackson hits as they are doing it. truly an amazing performance. good job. a promising new step toward a potential, potential cure for baldness revealed in a new study. let's bring in our senior medical correspondent, elizabeth cohen. she's got the details.

why is this research potentially so significant? >> because wolf, it seems to be a proof of principle. let me tell you what these researchers at columbia in new york city did. what they did is they took cells from hair follicles and they put these follicles on to skin that doesn't bear hair, where hair would never grow. they put the follicles on that skin and then they put that piece of skin on the back of a mouse and they waited some time. what they found was that hair grew. so you wouldn't expect it to grow but it actually did grow. so there is obviously a lot more work to be done, but as i said, this is a proof of principle, that this kind of thing could possibly work. >> but they're saying it's promising, right? as you say, there's a lot more work that needs to be done. >> right. there certainly is. so for example, hair falls out so will it grow back in when it falls out under these circumstances. will it grow back in over a period of years. there's lots of things that they need to figure out first. >> if it does work, any idea when it might really be usable

for humans? >> it would be many, many years. so they need another three to five years to keep doing this work until they try it in human beings. then they have to do those trials which take years. then they have to apply to the fda. it will be a long time. i always like to say with stories like this, this may never come to fruition. this may be the last that we hear of it. but even if it does work, it will take years until someone can actually buy it. >> elizabeth cohen with that medical study, thank you. up next, no one in charge. warnings that things could go very wrong. i'll talk about the obama care website problems with democratic congressman elijah cummings, the top democrat on the house oversight and government reform committee. by the way, you can tweet us some suggested questions. don't forget to use the hash tag, sitroom. also ahead, a huge boost for efforts to legalize marijuana. there's a new poll that is out. you will be surprised by what it reveals. ready to run your lines? okay, who helps you focus on your recovery?

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we now know about the problems in a massive new effort that's under way to try to fix them. should someone be held accountable for the launch of the obamacare website? i'll ask elijah cummings. he's standing by live. tweet us your suggested questions. my mantra?

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of prostate cancer; worsening prostate symptoms; decreased sperm count; ankle, feet or body swelling; enlarged or painful breasts; problems breathing while sleeping; and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa. ask your doctor about the only underarm low t treatment, axiron. let's get back to our top story. sources telling cnn there were red flags early on that the obama care website rollout could have some major problems. we're learning that no one person was really in charge of the entire operation. here's a question. should someone be held accountable for the failures? let's discuss with democratic congressman elijah cummings of maryland. he's the ranking democrat on the house oversight and government reform committee. congressman, thanks so much for joining us. >> good to be with you, wolf. >> i know you must be very

frustrated. were you surprised to learn that apparently no one was really in charge of this website rollout, even though they had a couple years to plan for it? >> yeah, a bit surprised, but wolf, what we've got to concentrate now on is making sure that the website works and i'm hoping that republicans and democrats will see this not as a partisan issue, but as one that we have to make work for all the american people. failure is just not an option. >> let me get to that point, because your responsibility is congressional oversight. >> that's right. >> when there are mistakes in the executive branch of the government, your responsibility is to learn from those mistakes, report to the american people what happened and then hopefully we won't repeat those mistakes down the road. >> that's exactly right. >> your committee has a legitimate oversight responsibility right now, you and darrell issa, the chairman of your committee. >> that's right. we certainly do. and chairman issa has already

said that he wants to look into this matter but i want to make sure that this does not turn out to be one of those situations where the chairman makes these allegations, the press don't follow up on them to make sure they're true or false and then later we find out that they are absolutely inaccurate. i've said to chairman issa over and over and over again, i want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. so we're going to be looking into it and trying to make sure that we make it work. keep in mind, republicans have spent the last few years trying to repeal it over 45 times, trying to defund it, trying to delay it, and so i have not seen a lot of effort on their part to make the law better, but simply to destroy it. so that's the kind of issue that i'm working with, wolf, on my committee. i've got to make sure that we all work together to make sure that the law works for millions

upon millions of americans who need health care. >> i read that letter you wrote, chairman issa, today. i will read a line from it because it suggests to me, correct me if i'm wrong, you don't have a lot of confidence in the way he's going to conduct this investigation. in the committee's past investigations, you write involving operation fast and furious, the attacks in benghazi and the irs review of am capitacapita applicants for tax exempt status, your approach has been to leap to accusations against the white house and top officials with no basis in fact. here's the question. you have confidence that the chairman will be fair and responsible in this current oversight investigation? >> you know, wolf, i want to think that. i want to believe that. but you know, i think what i'm seeing now is the same play and the same scene all over again. we saw the chairman make strong allegations which were inaccurate with regard to benghazi and fast and furious and irs, and only to find out

that those allegations were simply not accurate and had no basis of fact. so it makes my job a little tougher. while i want to make sure that government operates properly and i'm going to do that, i also have to make sure that we get all of the facts so that we can make proper decisions and so that we can truly bring about the reform that's necessary and do what you just said, be able to inform the american people of what happened, not a little snippet here or there, but the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> should someone be held accountable for these failures? >> i always believe that you've got to hold somebody accountable. i think the president, that's his job. he will look into that. we don't know all the facts yet. but the president will determine that. but the more important thing is right now, we are in the midst of trying to make sure that all of these people who have gone to the website, over 19 million now, that they are able to get the information that they need

so that they can access insurance information so that they can become insured. so i want to concentrate on that right now. i believe that the president, knowing him as i do, he is one who pursues excellence in everything he does. i can imagine that he's a bit frustrated right now. but i'm sure he will address all of that and i would imagine that he is spending night and day, day and night letting people know exactly how he feels. but let me tell you something, wolf. i have absolutely unequivocally no doubt, none, that we will have this matter resolved, that the affordable care act will go forward, and the people who have been granted this wonderful opportunity to finally be able to get accessible and affordable health care will have that opportunity. this is so very important. >> you know, a lot of us thought maybe there would be some problems with the affordable care act down the road but very few, i don't think anybody who is not on the inside thought

that as far as a website, given the high tech orientation of this president, this administration, that launching a website would be this humiliating and this embarrassing. i assume you didn't have a clue about that. >> no, i did not expect this, but you know, wolf, we've seen this before. you know, a lot of operations when they first come out, the technical people tell me they have these kind of problems. but again, you know, we are -- the president i know is bringing in the very, very best people in our country to make sure they address this. as i said to my constituents over and over again, let me tell you something, wolf. if we can send somebody to the moon, we certainly should be able to deal with this. and so we will. i don't think people should panic. i don't think that the republicans should go around looking for the doomsday. it's very interesting, you hear them over and over again, oh, we're in trouble, oh, we won't be able to do this, we won't be able to do that. please. we're better than that.

we're a better country than that. we will get this done. >> do you have confidence in secretary sebelius? >> i have confidence in secretary sebelius and i guarantee by the time we get into december and the time -- and march when people have to have all this done, we will have the kind of results that we need. believe me, sometimes you have a problem early in a situation, wolf, and that allows you to make those corrections early so that it clears the path so that you can get to where you've got to go. i've lived long enough and seen enough to know that that's the case. so it's going to be fine. it will be fine. trust me. >> elijah cummings, one of those hearings in your committee is supposed to start, we know that another house committee starts this thursday, continues next week. sebelius will testify next week. this week, some of the contractors will testify. when are you expecting your committee to launch hearings? >> i would imagine sometime within the next two to three weeks. that is going to depend on

chairman issa. he calls those balls and strikes. but again, you know, we'll have in the house the executives from cgi, the computer folk, they'll come in and they'll talk about it, not just to our committee. i think we'll learn a lot there. >> we'll learn a lot on thursday during this initial hearing and they're testifying, these contractors who created this website. we've got to run. congressman, thanks as usual for joining us. >> thank you. >> elijah cummings of maryland, ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform. just ahead, efforts to legalize marijuana may have received a little bit of a boost today. we have new poll numbers. stand by for that. and as cnn prepares to bring you an extraordinary documentary about killer whales this week, we are taking a closer look back at some of the most famous orca of them all.

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we're learning new details about the messy obama care website rollout. the red flags that signaled things could go horribly wrong, the lack of a point person, all of that. so is this just the tip of the iceberg? let's discuss the political fallout. joining us, the cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein, the editorial director of the national journal, and columnist amy stoddard of the hill newspaper. guys, thanks very much. ron, i've just gotten a statement from brendan buck, spokesman for john boehner. he says the administration will be briefing house democrats tomorrow on this website. no briefing was offered to house republicans. they're upset about this. i assume they're going to have to fix that, right? >> understandably.

one of the issues here has been the amount of information and the transparency about what's happening which has been lacking. but you know, we are really in a situation where political problem overlaps and slides into actual substantive problem, because one of the key issues for the exchanges from the beginning was whether they were going to get enough young, healthy people to sign up to create a balanced risk pool. the assumption has been that people who are in ill health who need health care desperately are going to find a way to do this, and they are going to wait through long delays on the website, they are going to do whatever they can to get the health care. the issue has been whether younger people are going to sign up and if it continues to be difficult for someone who doesn't desperately need health care to sign up, they do increase the risk of having what is called adverse selection and a risk pool that will drive up costs in the future. so they really need to get this done not only because the optics are bad but because at some point down the road, it threatens the underlying substance of what they're trying to do. >> that's an excellent point.

all of us, we have covered these kinds of events here in washington over many years, when there's bad news for an administration, you have to assume, they have to assume, they learned this the hard way, often, it will come out anyhow. the better way for it all to come out, the bad news, is you put it out yourself instead of letting your critics or enemies put it out. i'm not sure the administration yet has learned that. >> right. ron's point is central to the entire program, it collapses under itself if the new people don't come in. what was required was a smooth beginning. the administration should have known this. they were under pressure to be aware of this structural necessity from the insurance companies three and a half years ago. the fact that they allowed for a rough beginning will have a material impact on enrollment and the fact that they stood out this week and said yes, there's problems, there was a message on the hhs website, the president came out to make remarks. we never heard a specific diagnosis about what went wrong. we still don't know that they know what went wrong or when it will be fixed. and that is going to create a problem for people who are

healthy and disengaged like the young and healthy will think it's a hassle to sign up, and that ultimately has an impact on prices. >> one thing -- i'm sorry. one thing they have going for them is the massachusetts experience which is the closest we have where they did the individual mandate under mitt romney, of course, they did find that people tended to sign up in large numbers right around the deadline so that would be at the end of the year to have coverage by early next year and then of course the end of open enrollment in march. so they probably still have some time to get this cleared up. but i agree, there is an opportunity from the outset and if it lingers it becomes much more dangerous than an optics problem or political problem. it becomes a problem to the substantive working of the program. >> let me get your thoughts on a very, very different subject. marijuana. a new gallup poll numbers on legalizing marijuana. do you think the use of marijuana should be legal. the numbers have really changed dramatically. back in 1969, only 12% thought so. 34%, 2003. now it's up to 58%. 58% now believe marijuana should

be legal in the united states. that's a majority. >> well, it's what we're seeing on a number of issues. gay marriage has had a similarly rapid evolution in public opinion in some ways, even more striking. with the millenial generation leading the way and certainly being the point of the spear on the change, but also other generations following to some extent. society is moving in many ways toward a more libertarian perspective on some of these issues of kind of personal liberty and personal freedom, and i see this as very much parallel to what we have been witnessing on gay marriage, which is becoming quickly a norm in blue states as well as a solid majority of public opinion. >> it's legal in a couple states now, right? but presumably, it's going to expand, especially after these numbers, right? >> i think so. i think that ron's right, it's not only that the country is broke and there is a libertarian streak where people say we can't afford to prosecute crimes of buying or possessing or dealing marijuana anymore. we can't fill our jails with people who were convicted of

these crimes, at the same time there's a prevalence of marijuana as a treatment for pain relief for cancer patients, et cetera. that seems to be a sentiment that's growing more popular, that it's more acceptable, and i don't see this going in the reverse direction. i think like same sex marriage, it will just continue for different reasons to become more and more popular. >> guys, thanks very much. >> thank you. chilling new 911 calls just coming in from the nevada school shooting that left a beloved teacher dead. cnn's stephanie elam is joining us from sparks, nevada right now. she's got the details. what do we know? >> reporter: when you hear these calls, wolf, you can just hear the chaos and panic in the voices of the people calling in. remember, from the time that the first call came in to 911, to when police got here, was just three minutes and in that time, everything was over and in that time, two people were dead and two were injured. take a listen to this one call. >> a student from sparks middle

school, can you please send police out here? there's a kid with a gun. >> okay. where are they with the gun? >> huh? >> where are they with the gun? >> sparks middle school. >> i know, but where at the school? that's what i'm saying. >> out by the basketball court. >> at the basketball court? >> yeah. send someone now. >> i need you to talk to the paramedics, too. don't hang up, okay? one second. >> and from one witness who was there, one child, an eighth grader, saying that the student that was shooting was also yelling things, yelling things like why are you all laughing at me, he said, and different things that he was screaming at the time. but at the same time, all of the kids on campus were running and because the teachers and students inside the school acted so quickly, the student was not able to get inside of the school and so police are saying that was a huge reason why there were not more people injured or lives

lost. >> what a sad story. stephanie, thanks very much. heartbreaking. this thursday, cnn will air the film "blackfish" which takes a critical look at the captive killer whale industry. 20 years ago, another movie that started out as a simple family film became an international sensation. for a time it seemed everyone wanted to free willy. here's martin savidge with the story behind the story. >> reporter: if you had children growing up in the '90s, then you definitely remember this. >> yeah! >> reporter: free willy. the story of a troubled kid who befriends a killer whale trapped in a run-down aquarium became an unexpected hit. it was all hollywood, but the orca in the failing mexican aquarium, that was real. called keiko, he was mol nourished, weak and might have

died there if not for gloria hillard, who confronted movie execs. >> she and her camera crew came to my office and essentially started asking warner brothers has got a hit movie, they're going to make a lot of money on this, you've is this a puck publicity nightmare, what you have going to do? >> reporter: it was moved to a specially built tank in oregon where he got healthy. and he returned back to the waters where keiko had been captured. he had been dependent on humans most of his life. the hurdles were huge. >> it was to release him to his family and to spend the rest of his life at sea with his family.

the reality of it was that he wasn't the best candidate for the release. >> reporter: the reunion never happened. the rehabilitation went on for years. then one day, keiko disappeared. he was tracked and located off the coast of norway. >> when i got into the water, he was to the centimeter what he had been. >> reporter: so he hadn't lost any weight? >> hadn't last any weight. >> reporter: keiko seemed determined to stay, to the delight of locals. he turned on his cell phone and got a desperate message from norway. keiko was dead. how did you take it? >> very hard. he was perfectly fit and healthy when he left. and his behavior changed very quickly. >> reporter: the cause never

known, because no necropsy was ever performed. the cost was any you where from 12 to $20 million. it was called a failure. >> wild isn't free willie, but it's not gentle ben. >> reporte . >> did he swim off to the sunset with his family? no, but i think it was a huge success. >> reporter: it may not have been the hollywood ending that he wanted, but he says there's no denying that when he died, the whale once known as willie was free. martin savage, cnn, atlanta. you can watch blackfish 9:00 eastern here on cnn. coming up, new questions arising about one of america's

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boston is going crazy as the red sox gear up for the world series. jeanne moos is next. the day we rescued riley, was a truly amazing day. without angie's list, i don't know if we could have found all the services we needed for our riley. from contractors and doctors to dog sitters and landscapers. you can find it all on angie's list. join today. just by talking to a helmet. it grabbed the patient's record before we even picked him up. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. [ driver ] and it got his okay on treatment from miles away.

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it started in spring training and snowballed. styles range from trim with attached sideburns to a beard bushey enough to cushion yourself on a fence, okay maybe an above average beard can't raise a batting average. they went from a terrible year last year to the world series this year. david ortiz is referring to sampson before delilah, at least he was until delilah cut the source of his strength, his hair, before that, sampson was invincible. forget the feeding lions. the fans seem to love having so many team members looking like castaways. back in september, fans got tickets to the game for a buck if they wore beards on dollar beard night. >> that's the worst looking beard i've ever seen.

>> he's four weeks old. i'm calling it the four ball count. >> reporter: even tee shirts are bearded in boston. >> everyone wants to touch it. >> reporter: of course not every player is fuzzy. he wore a beard for years then shaved it of about the season started. no one gives him grief because his relief pitching has been such a relief. he's playing better clean shaven. but all those beards can give the opposition facial hair envy, even though st. louis cardinal jason matt has a beard worthy of stroking. >> they have a good amount of beards. those things are pretty nice. >> reporter: wild the world series may not live up to the billing savage drama, why settle for sampson and delilah, when you can see naply and goems trying to pull each other's beards. jeanne moos, cnn, new york.

happening now, the president and his health secretary calling the big guns to fix the health care website. plus dramatic new poll numbers. americans rate the republicans at the heart of the shoft shutdown. and u.s. drone strikes. you're in the situation room. brand new this hour, republicans and the tea party are getting the worst ratings in the history of our polling just a week after the government

shutdown. governments aren democrats aren't faring a whole lot better. let's go to brianna keilar. we're the learning about the obama care website. what's being done to fix it? >> reporter: one of the biggest problems we are told facing this website was that there wasn't really a single point person, a manager, really, in charge of all of this who would have had a really good handle on exactly where the website was, what shortcomings there were. and we told this by sources inside and outside the government who spoke to us anonymously, because they are not authorized to speak on the record. now to that point, today we learned, and this is really the improvement that you pointed out, that jeff zienc is going to be the one to oversee this. he has a lot of private sector

experience as well. he was the ceo of a company. and belatedly to fulfill this role as many observers will point out. but one source said this is really going to be the equivalent of someone giving a no-bs assessment of the site. we are also told by secretary sebelius that some veterans will be coming in to assist. we don't know who they are. >> we know that officials at the department of health and human services were aware in advance before the october 1st roll out that there were some serious problems. here's the question. did officials at the white house, were they fully aware of these problems before october 1st? >> reporter: it's hard to tell, but it does seem certainly there was some awareness within the administration. and talking to sources, you really do come to realize that it was a bit of an open secret, certainly among contractors who

were working on this that things weren't where they were supposed to be. in fact, sources tell our joe johns that the government was aware that there were at least capacity problems, a source saying that when cms, which is that division of hhs that is overseeing this website roll out and the implementation of obama care, when higher ups realized there was this problem they kind of circled the wagons. that may have reflected president obama having such a positive face about what the website was going to be a few days before launch. let's get to the dramatic new polling we're releasing right now and americans' views of the political parties and the lightning rod figures on both sides of the aisle. let's bring in john king. what are we seeing, john? >> the american people have a very dim view of all of the leaders here in washington. and it's fair to say after the shutdown they dislike the republicans a bit more.

let's go through some of the leading figures in washington. i was about to call them the stars, but the american people don't view them that way. by ten points people have a more unfavorable rating of nancy pelosi. but john boehner, look at that. essentially two to one. more americans find him unfavorable than do favorably. if you move over to the senate side, mitch mcconnell, 23% favorable. muir than four in ten unfavorable. look at that, ted cruz making his mark on the national stage and at the moment, popular with tea party republicans, but with americans at large, 23% favorable, 42% unfavorable. the best lace to be in politics was as far away as you could be from the shutdown. hillary clinton is that iing

about 2016. a 59% favorable. 37% unfavorable. you can bet one of the things secretary clinton is happy for is to have absolutely nothing to do with what the country just went through. >> she just dipped her toes a little bit in the political race in virginia. her husband, the former president will be helpful in the coming days. the president facing some unfavorable numbers after the shutdown. these are significant because potentially they could affect the 2014 elections. you ha . >> republicans are being lao being at gains next year, not losses, but these numbers show you that democrat also have an opening. look at this, a 64% unfavorable rating for the republican party. that is an all-time low since we've been testing this question back in 1992.

never in those 20-plus years have republicans had such a high unfavorable rating. now if you look at the democratic party, they don't fare all that much better, but 43% favorable, 51% unfavorable. we've been asking what people think of the tea party. that is the all time high over the past several year, 28% favorable, 56% unfavorable. no question of brand problem for the republicans. you talk too republican stanl i strategists, they don't hide the numbers. but they say look at the president, look at the recovery. next year, those will be the big issues. as one top republican strategist just told me, it's going to be a race to the bottom. >> so when you see those

negative numbers for the tea party, can we assume that more moderate republicans will try to distance themselves from the tea party? >> remember, we're looking at national numbers here. so when you ask that question, you really have to go state by state. we did see a lot of republicans. we did see leader mcconnell say it was a bad strategy. peter king of long island, new york on the program a couple times. those guys have been harshly critical of the tea party strategy. but it really depends on where you live. outside of the shutdown, you've heard tea party people say they're going to run people. we're going to watch the internal civil war play out before we get to the general election in 2014. we're going to see a lot of primaries. still ahead, new accusations that when the united states

launched some drone strikes it might have committed war crimes. plus, he's been charged with helping plan one of the worst terror attacks against an american target. we're investigating questions about his role and his links to al qaeda. la's known definitely for its traffic,

congestion, for the smog. but there are a lot of people that do ride the bus. and now that the buses are running on natural gas, they don't throw out as much pollution into the air.

so i feel good. i feel like i'm doing my part to help out the environment. . wall street investors weren't put off by a lackluster job report. all three stock end deindeces w at the closing bell. the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.2%. the jobs report was delayed more than two weeks because of the government shutdown. stand by for more news coming into the situation room right now. we'll continue our coverage right after this. so my dog and i we're going to go find it. it's out there somewhere spreading the good word about idaho potatoes

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pakistan, and nothing drives anti-u.s. anger than the drone campaign. two reports today, one by human rights watch, in yemen and another in pakistan paint a disturbing picture of the continuing cost of the drone war. this is one face of the american drone program, 68 year old wok woman killed in front of her grandchildren says amnesty international. i wasn't scared of drones before, her granddaughter said, but now when they fly overhead i wonder if i will be next. they argue that killings such as this may amount to war crimes. >> we are extremely concerned that these and other killings documented in our report may constitute executions or war crimes. >> reporter: the new america

foundation has cataloged a total of 365 drone strikes in pakistan since 2004, killing as many as 2700 militants and 300 civilians, meaning that on average, roughly one in ten victims is a civilian. the data found similar resulting for yemen. >> the administration has repeatedly emphasized the care that we take to ensure counsel tore terrorism actions are in accordance with all applicable law. >> reporter: still the drone program is the primary reason for anti-u.s. sentiment. tomorrow, the president will likely hear the same message when he meets with pakistani prime minister sharif. they called for the strikes to

end immediately. >> this has been an issue in our bilateral relationship. i would stress the need for an end to the drone attacks. >> reporter: it is unlikely to end because it has been so successful. a reason that a number of attacks has come down is they're running out of targets. they've decimated them or driven them into hiding. it might radicalize more people than they kill. >> thank you. meanwhile, a new court appearance in new york city today for a terror suspect nached from the streets of libya by u.s. forces. he's been called one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. but there are new questions raised about his role in the attacks. bryan todd is looking into all of this. >> new questions about how big a role he played in those attacks.

whether abu was grabbed, u.s. officials said it was a major capture because of his alleged linss to one of the worst terror strikes against american interests. now as al libby gears up for his trial, his wife tries to make a case by constructing a timeline. one of america's most wanted terror suspects in court in manhattan. abu abu al libby. his wife tells cnn he's not only innocent, but he left al qaeda well before the 1998 attacks. >> translator: it is true my husband was a member of al qaeda, but he left al qaeda in 1996, two years before the bombings. he did not take part in any

bombing anywhere in the world. >> reporter: they say that he left in sudan in the mid 1990s, but there's no indication that he completely severed ties with al qaeda. and the indictment says he helped plan the attacks before leaving. they say al liby the conducted photographic surveillance of the united states embassy. >> these very same pictures were brought to bin laden in sudan and bin laden looked through the pictures and decided where he was going to put a truck bomb. >> reporter: but the plan was put on a shelf for five years. all officials seem to know now is that al liby was simply a scout for the operation. by the time of the bombing, he had joined another military tant

group. >> it's possible he had no knowledge that bin laden had green lighted the operation, that bin laden had used his photographs to attack the embassy. >> but that does not mean he was not part of the plot originally. officials wouldn't comment on the statements of his wife that he was innocent. let's check some other stories. facebook is lifting a ban on violent video, including beheadings. the social media site says it will now allow photos or videos that are posted to raise awa awareness of violence. saudis plan to make a major shift away from the u.s. over

perceived inaction against iran. new jersey state police have accused people with a fight outside of the stadium. a picture of a man slugging a woman in the face went viral. all four have been charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct. a one-armed player is getting a spot on a basketball team. he has made a verbal commitment to play for the florida gators. he'll have a chance to play as pa preferred walk-on. he was born with no left arm below his elbow. just ahead, insights into the obama care fiasco. the former chief technology officer is joining us. if you have questions for him, tweet them to us. don't forget to use the hash tag sit room.

we now know more about the deadly school shooting in nevada and how it played out. police say the 12 year old shooter started shooting outside the school yesterday. the teacher michael lance berry intervened. two more students were injured before the shooter killed himself. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ hooking up the country helping business run ♪ ♪ trains! they haul everything, safely and on time. ♪ tracks! they connect the factories built along the lines. and that means jobs, lots of people, making lots and lots of things. let's get your business rolling now, everybody sing. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ helping this big country move ahead as one ♪

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let's get back to our stop story, the administration scrambling to fix the obama care website. but we're also learning more every day about its failures. we're joined by the technology expert. let me read to you what a former member of the technology team wrote on a brog post the other

day. healthcare.gov got this way not because of sloppiness of an individual vendor but because of a deeply engrained malignant cancer that's eating away at the federal governments ability to provide effective online services. >> i have a great deal of respect for his commentary. when president obama took office, one of the early insights we gained was in contracting. we've taken some early steps that have shown some promising results. clay was on the team that built a rfptz program that made it easier for contractors who were small businesses who didn't have the resources of some of the more significantly sized firms to compete. and when they opened up the competition, prices fell and quality went up. so we've already begun the road of trying to make an improvement in the government procurement

processes, and i think more work will continue to be done, but that will involve congress to be engaged in some of these issues. >> why wasn't this done prior to the roll out of obama care? >> much of these have been at the heart of it. when the law was signed in 2010, the administration had less than 90 days to stand up the version of healthcare.gov. that was built in a lean government startup. and it made information accessible to anyone from the public and private sectors to reuse to make sure that folks had the information they need. much of what you're seeing today is early steps, but i hope an indication that that spirit of openness and collaboration will help us make our way through these initial challenges that we're dealing with in the coming weeks. >> only now they're saying they're bringing in the best and brightest to fix this. my sense is they should have done this early on. >> let me -- i don't want to speak for the administration, i

think that term best and brightest might be slightly overdescribed. i think what you're seeing is there's an all-hands-on-deck approach right now. there are experts that are very successful in identifying how to break those problems into component parts are now coming to the table. once you break a problem down no smaller bite-sized chunks, you say which one do we go after first, second and third. the best and brightest in this case is making sure we've done a good job of identifying the root problems, priority advertise and use every available asset, private and public sector to solve them. the early indications show that the team is focused on those issues. >> should someone be fired? >> i don't believe that. there's a lot of accountability in monday morning quarterbacking. we need to make sure every american has the ability to

access these plans so they can live a more comfortable life. i hope that will happen before december 15th. and that's the real milestone, how many people can sign up by december 15th to have coverage by january 1. >> do they need to trash it and start from scratch? >> i think there is a path forward. this is really two major complex projects. one is the marketplace, the site that we know, logging in, getting credentials, finding out what subsidies they have and shopping for a plan. then there's the back end, the system that connects the irs, social security, that latter system, the data hub as been publicly reported, that system is working. if you told me that the ability to get all these old legacy systems to talk to one another, if that was failing us, that might be a little bit of a harder lift, but the piece that's broken, thankfully is something we understand. it's not a new forge of physics.

it's making sure folks can find the plan that's right for them and to make sure they have the subsidy calculations to get there. that's a known good and they're going to work through these issues as they uncover them. >> here's a question from one of our twitter followers. why didn't they build a website where you could just window shop, get estimates without having to give so much personal information? >> so, actually, this question's come up quite a bit. and it isn't entirely correct, the assumption that the tweet suggests. almost within days of the site launching, in addition to publishing the site at healthcare.gov, all of the underlying pricing and shopping data that hhs has made available through the marketplace was available on data.health care.gov. others could and should take that information and make it really compelling and available

to folks. it's available. it's just that i believe the reason they did what they did is if you're a medicaid enrollee, do you want to do a shopping experience only to know stlthatu have to go on medicaid. crossfire starts right now. tonight, on crossfire, we've heard all about what's gone wrong. can we trust the team that rolled out obama care's website to fix its problems now? >> we're not interested in monday morning quarterbacking. on the left, van jones. on the right, s.e. cup. in the crossfire, obama care damage control, what's the best prescription? tonight on crossfire. welcome to