overstock.com indicated that they will take bitcoin as currency. that's it for "the lead." right now i'll turn you over to wolf blitzer. he's in "the situation room." wolf? jake, thank you very much. hammering hillary clinton. some top people are blaming hillary and an assault on her qualifications. and robert gates with his take on benghazi and bombshells about president obama and vice president biden in his new book. and nuclear nightmare. a massive sheeting scandal at the u.s. military is blowing holes in the hopes that the most powerful weapons are safe. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." some top republicans seem more determined than ever to make

hillary clinton pay a political price for the attack on u.s. diplomats in benghazi, libya, as the 2016 presidential buzz of clinton gets louder and louder. partisan debate about her leadership. elise labott is standing by and has the latest on the tough attacks today. elise? >> that's right, wolf. hillary clinton is putting finishing touches on her book. it will address benghazi. republicans are making sure that the issues stay front and center. just hours ago, the political fight over benghazi spilled on to the senate floor with hillary clinton's former colleagues questioning her role. >> she could be on tv to talk about what happened in the state department because she was distraught? i don't buy that. does anybody believe that about secretary clinton? and if it's true, it's something

that the american public needs to consider. >> reporter: ammunition as clinton wrestles with another presidential run. >> i think if she wants to be commander in chief, she has to run for her leadership as secretary of state over what happened in benghazi. she has a lot of accomplishments. she's an accomplished woman. but under her leadership, benghazi became a death trap. >> reporter: clinton herself gets a pass in the main report. >> there is no evidence that secretary clinton even knew about this. there is an undersecretary for management, there are others that run these facilities, evaluate these facilities, that make the decisions with respect to security. >> reporter: but a 16-page edition, written solely by republicans on the committee, places the blame squarely at her feet, saying final responsibility for security at diplomatic facilities lies with

the former secretary of state, hillary clinton. >> the state department officials and diplomatic security. >> reporter: when i interviewed hillary a month after the attack, she said the buck stops with her. >> i take responsibility. i'm in charge of the state department. 60,000 people all over the world, 275 posts. >> reporter: but the gop has seized upon this statement. >> the fact is, we have four dead americans. was it because of a protest or because guys out for a walk one night decided to kill some americans? what difference does it make at this point? >> secretary clinton instead of yelling at the foreign relations committee who cares, she should know, one, we do care. and, two, if she wants to be president of the united states, she should come clean and reveal every detail of this tragic situation that resulted in the deaths of four americans. >> now, wolf, clinton insiders insist that she has never played

politics with benghazi and if republicans want to do it, they will have to do it without her. that said, clinton will have to address benghazi during the campaign if she decides to run. the strategy, to let as much time as possible. no point into getting into a political battle so early. >> elise labott with that report, thank you very much. let's bring in the former defense secretary of the united states, robert gates. he's here. he's getting a lot of attention for his new book, "duty, memoirs of a secretary at war." thank you for coming in. >> thanks, wolf. >> do you agree with lindsey graham and the blasts against hillary do you tie? >> well, benghazi happened after i left. i don't really know the particulars. i think that the key question is, as senator feinstein said, was the information ever brought to her attention? and, if so, what was done? but i think that's an important question as far as her role

personally. >> the government at the time of the benghazi attack but everything you've read, everything you're hearing, does it make you more or less inclined to believe that she would be commander in chief of the united states? >> let me use a parallel situation. i fired a number of people at the department of defense, including the secretary of the military over nuclear matters and in both cases it was not -- it was not because they hadn't known something had happened. it was after it had happened that they take it seriously enough and it seems to me that's an important question. it's completely conceivable to me that the secretary of state would not have known about a request for additional security from an ambassador, that that would have gone to various other parts of the department. >> but do you think that what she did afterwards would disqualify her as the people you

fired disqualified them? >> as i say, i wasn't in the government at the time so i actually don't know what happened after the fact. but that would be an important question for me. >> here's a question that one of our followers on twitter kristen sent to us when i asked for some suggestive questions to you. "will he support hillary in 2016? would he serve in her cabinet?" >> well, i think with this book, my chances of coming back to washington are probably not very high. and as far as my wife is concerned, probably nonexistent. as for secretary clinton, i make clear in the book that i have a lot of admiration for her and consider her a valued colleague when i was in government. by the same token, i don't think the democrats want a republican handicapping -- >> is she somebody you could have endorsed? >> i've never gotten into politics, never have taken a

political role since i entered the government in 1966 so i don't see why i should now. >> you were very tough on a lot of people. a very candid book. cross -- and i'm going to read a sentence from the book "duty." "uncivil, incompetent in fulfilling basic constitutional responsibilities often putting self and re-election before country, this was my view of the majority of the united states congress." wow. was there anybody that you actually liked in congress? >> absolutely. there's quite a few members as individuals and as people i liked and enjoyed and some that i really respected. >> give me an example of who you really admired. >> well, one of the persons that i talk about -- actually, to take the chairman and vice chairman of the -- ranking member of the armed services

committee. i had a lot of respect for carl levin. he and i disagreed about almost everything but when senator levin told me that he would do something, he did it. he was very political about a lot of issues. he, i think, went after my spre predecessor, but i could take senator levin at his word. same thing with senator mccain. senator mccain was always interesting to deal with at hearings but, by the same token, i think he was very important and helpful in cut programs and he would also keep his word. >> i want to get through a lot of important issues. let's me move on to iraq right now, which seems to be boiling over now. knowing what you know now, should the united states have

invi invaded iraq in 2003? >> i say in the book, i was along with everyone else, that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. part of the reason why everybody believed it is that suddam let everybody believe it. >> he didn't. it was an intelligence theory. >> knowing what we know now, was that invasion in march of 2003 a mistake? >> well, i think that i've said all along and i continue to believe that will have to be a judgment made 10 or 20 or 30 years from now. the fact that the information on which we went to war was wrong will always taint the war, no matter what history's ultimate judgment is. >> because you're very blunt in this book. you admit a lot of successes, a lot of failures. but you're reluctant to say at this point -- and we know a lot more obviously now than we knew in march of 2003, you're

reluctant to say that this war now was a mistake? >> i think it's too early to draw a final conclusion but i do say that after the initial success there were a number of amazing blunders and mistakes that turned an early victory into a long and grinding war. and i think we made a lot of wrong assumptions, whether the length of the war or how soon it would end and so on. i just -- i think i'm pretty candid about all of the mistakes that were made but in terms of the ultimate judgment, even when i was in office, i was reluctant to draw a final conclusion on whether historically this will prove to be a mistake. i will tell you the one condition under which i think it might come out okay. and that is if 20 or 30 years from now the removal of saddam hussein is seen as the first crack in a wall of authoritarianism in the middle east, that after we get through

the tur bulence and problems tht we're having today leads to a prosperous middle east. frankly today, it's a long shot. >> it's a long shot. a civil war is erupting. what is happening in syria could explode inside iraq right now. and the big winner may be iran because its influence from iran through iraq through syria through lebanon has been expanded. >> and i acknowledge in the book that one of the consequences of our invasion of iraq was ultimately to strengthen iran's role and influence in the region. so what i just posited is the only scenario that i see that would ultimately make people think that the decision to invade iraq was a good one. >> because, as you know, the united states, we lost thousands of american troops, tens of thousands came home, injured, hundreds of billions of dollars spent and a lot of them are now asking -- and they are looking at what is going on in falluja

and ramadi where so many american troops were hurt and injured and they are saying what happened here? >> i think our troops accomplished their mission when in 2008 and 2009 we handed over to the iraqis a stable, relatively secure, relatively democratic country. we basically handed them their future on a silver platter, thanks to the sacrifices and the courage of our troops and the civilians, american civilians who served there. what has happened subsequently, first of all, i think is prime minister maliki's refusal to try and include the sunnis in a multisectarian government. and it's failure to invest any money in anbar and the sunni areas. he's basically given the sunnis no reason to believe that the government serves their purposes or is good for them.

>> well, there were so many people predicting that would happen, no matter how courageous and brave and brilliant our troops were, given the historic rivalries between the sunnis, shia, the kurds within the various groups that have been going on for hundreds of years, to believe that they were going to achieve this pro american democracy, a lot of folks were saying and i was in falluja back in 2005, they were saying to me, soldiers, what was going on and do we really think we're going to resolve this thing and create a stable democracy. >> i think what i'm trying to say is that our troops accomplished their mission, which was to stabilize the country and create a circumstance where we could leave iraq without it being a strategic disaster for the united states with global consequences. but the second thing that's happened over which maliki has had little control over was the

spill-over in syria and the insurgence of al qaeda which has spilled over into iraq and whatever effort we can do and make in iraq in terms of providing weapons or whatever to the government to help them fight this back but the key is maliki reaching out to the sunnis. there's a few signs over the last few days that maybe he's gotten a wake-up call and they start to do that. >> i'll believe that when we see it. i wouldn't bet much on it either. we're going to continue this conversation and get into more of the revealing details you include in your new book "duty." we're also going to talk a little bit about president obama's cocktail diplomacy, a new attempt to win over members of his own party trying to keep the interim deal with iran on track. also, a new scandal creating questions about the security of america's nuclear arson. [ male announcer ] here's a question for you:

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just coming in to "the situation room," united airlines flight forced to return to newark, new jersey, because of severe turbulence. several passengers on board flight 89 to beijing were injured. up to five flight attendants were hurt. they have all been taken to the hospital. we'll bring you more information as soon as we get more information from newark, new jersey. the start clock is about to go off on one of the biggest gambles of barack obama's administration, the temporary deal with iran takes effect on

monday and the president is fighting harder than ever to protect it from very vocal naysayers, many of whom happen to be members of his own party, including some of his closest allies. we're told he made a passionate appeal to democrats before enjoying a martini with them at the white house last night. let's go to brianna keilar. brianna? >> reporter: wolf, this was a very long and jovial meeting that president obama had last night. members of congress came armed with questions for him. one source inside of the meeting told me it was a single question that a senator asked about iran that gave president obama the chance to make his case to them. >> is our economy -- >> reporter: president obama making his case for college affordability today but behind the scenes, a big push for iran. in a rare two-hour strategy session wednesday night, president obama and democratic

senators hashed out their plans for the coming year and talked about their differences on iran. afterwards, something extremely uncommon for this president, a casual cocktail hour with obama sipping a martini outside the east room. one senator in attendance tells cnn it was one of the most powerful arguments he's heard from obama, a lengthy impassioned and detailed explanation. it's a case he's been making since november when iran agreed to a six-month negotiating period on its nuclear program. >> now is not the time to impose new sanctions. now is the time for us to allow the diplomats and technical experts to do their work. >> reporter: it appears obama is winning over democrats, though many of them have joined republicans in support of a sanctions bill, today harry reid suddenly indicated it may not make it to the senate floor any

time soon. >> people on both sides of this issue are working in good faith to come up with a result that is favorable. i say the result is going to be a factor. iran is not going to get a nuclear weapon. >> reporter: in an effort to buy time with skeptical lawmakers, the u.s. and allies will release assets frozen overseas and iran will neutralize uranium. but sure to add to lawmakers' doubts -- a new report that iran's top negotiator says that the country could reverse those promises within 24 hours if they choose. that was a report broke in by cnn by "the daily beast" josh rogin. and administration officials feeling that even though that may be considered alarming, they feel it's rhetoric, meant for internal consumption within iran for hardliners who are retiscent

to negotiate with the u.s. >> brianna keilar, thank you so much. let's turn back to robert gates and talk about his book "duty." who is right in the current debate over the iran and interim nuclear deal? the saudis don't like this deal? is. >> i agree entirely with the president that to vote new sanctions on iran right now probably would torpedo the negotiations. i think the sanctions that have been place -- put in place, first by president clinton, then president bush, then intensified by president obama have in fact successfully put enough pressure on iran to get them to the table. the key to me is what happens in six months. and from my stand -- so i agree with the president. this is not the time to impose

new sanctions on the iranians. i think that could very well kill the negotiation before it ever starts. i think, though, if i were sitting in "the situation room" at the white house, i would be saying, what is there that we can do that let's the iranians know that if these negotiations fail, that circumstances will be worse for them after a failed negotiation than they were before the negotiation. >> that's what the senators who are resisting with the president's admonitions are saying. none of these new sanctions would go into effect for six months unless the iranians broke the deal. they would only go into effect if there's no deal. >> well, i think that the president needs to run this negotiation. he and secretary kerry. so i think people ought to cut them slack in terms of getting the negotiations under way and seeing what we can get at the end. but at the same time, i would encourage the administration to

work with the congress and figure out if there's a way that their hand can be strengthened as they go into that negotiation that the iranians know that trying to slow roll the negotiations or the failure to roll back the iranians from being a nuclear threshold state, that that failure would lead to things being worse than they are today. >> looking back on your role in government, what was your biggest mistake? >> well, i think that my biggest mistake as secretary of defense and i talk about a number of my mistakes, frankly, in the book. i think one was failing to get a chain of command problem fixed in afghanistan quickly enough. i think that was a mistake. i think that -- and i talked at the end of the book, you know, there's a lot out there about what i've said about vice president biden and so on. the truth of the matter is i say in the book, i think i should have worked harder as secretary of defense to reach out

privately to the vice president to see if there wasn't a way to narrow our differences. >> because he comes across in a really, really negative way. >> well, and the irony is, if you read the book, it's clear that i was in agreement with the vice president on most of the issues facing the administration except for afghanistan and, frankly, his what i see -- >> a call on national security for over 40 years. >> and i would stand by that during his time as senator and particularly from the early '70s until the early '90s beginning with voting against south vietnam in the early '70s when we were trying to pull out to voting against the first gulf war. >> and you and the vice president were on the same page as far as the raid to kill bin laden. both of you were reluctant to do it. the president overrode your objections. >> yes, and we were in agreement

on mu bbarak and the arab sprin. >> as far as the raid on bin laden, the president was right, you were wrong. >> absolutely. but what i say in the book is that i think the vice president was against the raid because of the domestic political consequences. i was against the raid because successful or failure, i was worried that it would create such a problem with the pakistanis they would shut down our line of communication in afghanistan. but at the very end, i did turn around and support the raid. >> you also say you were wrong when the israelis told the prime minister of israel, told the united states, told the president that the israelis were going to take out the syrian nuclear reactor that north korea was helping them build and you didn't want the israelis to do that. the president basically, you say, gave the israelis the green light. >> well, i didn't say i was wrong in that case. what i said was that my concern that it might spark a wider war

in the middle east certainly proved not to be the case. >> your fears did not materialize? >> but my biggest concern and that i still stand by is that we chose to allow somebody to pull a gun first without trying to resolve the issue diplomatically and, frankly, holding syria accountable and making them pay a price internationally for having built this nuclear reactor. we always had the option to destroy the reactor before it became active and both secretary rice in my point was, let's try the diplomacy to embarrass this regime and make them pay a price internationally before we turn to the military option. >> because nobody even knew the syrians were building this reactor and the israelis went ahead and did it. you expected a very hostile syrian reaction but they turned the other cheek and forgot about it? >> well, i thought there was a risk of a wider war and, as we've been talking, i was wrong

in that. >> some of the most powerful stuff in this book included your emotions in dealing with u.s. troops, especially casualties, writing letters to family members. and you write this at one point. my fuse was really getting short. it seemed like i was flowing up in my own quiet way nearly every day. i did not enjoy being secretary of defense. people have no idea how much i detest this job. you were going through a personal crisis, weren't you? >> well, people would ask me, are you enjoying yourself? you must be joking. i'm signing deployment orders every week, sending young men and women into harm's way, i'm going to the funerals, the front lines, i'm writing these condolence letters. anybody who says they are enjoying a job like that ought to be the first person to step down. what i detested about the job was how difficult it was to get

anything done here in washington no matter how positive or important it was in light of the polarization and the paralysis here, even in the middle of two wars. so trying to get the right things done in the war and including and supporting the troops, was just so difficult. and that's the part of the job that i detested. i say in the book that i think both president bush and president obama for giving me an honor of a lifetime and the most gratifying position i've ever held primarily because of the opportunity to work with our men and women in uniform. >> and when i read those lines in the book, talking about you would go home at night, pour yourself a stiff drink, start writing letters to families, it's sort of almost sounded like u.s. troops that i've spoken to that have come home, suffering a little bit, sometimes not so little, from posttraumatic stress disorder and you were going through a similar kind of situation. >> i think there was a

cumulative effect and i reached the point, as i say in the book, where i was so preoccupied with protecting the troops and preventing them from being put into more conflict. when i opposed the war in libya i said, can i just finish the two wars i've already got on my hands before you guys go looking for a third? and i felt toward -- i did the job for 4 1/2 years and in the last few months i began to feel that my preoccupation with protecting them was clouding my objectivity in being able to give the president hard-headed advice in some international problems and that was one of the reasons i decided it was time to step down. >> did you ever seek professional help in dealing with the anguish you were going through? >> no. >> because a lot of troops, they come back and they are reluctant to get that kind of psychological or psychiatric help that they need and obviously you were reluctant to ask for that kind of help as well? >> well, i think that my concern

was that it was affecting my objectivity, not that i was having a psychological issue. >> you end the book with an amazing few paragraphs and i want to read them to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i know this is going to be difficult for you to hear it but i'll read it and then we'll discuss. "because of the nature of the two wars i oversaw, i could afford the luxury of sentiment in times that overwhelmed me. signing deployment orders, visiting hospitals, writing the condolence letters and attending the funerals around arlington all were taking a growing emotional toll on me. even thinking about the troops, i would lose my composure with increasing frequency." and then you conclude the book with this, "i am eligible to be buried at arlington national cemetery. i have asked to be buried in section 60 where so many have been fallen to rest. the greatest honor possible would be to rest among my heroes

for all eternity." do you want to elaborate or react? >> i think it speaks for itself. that's obviously how i feel and how i felt. >> because when you sent those young men and women off to iraq and afghanistan, you personally took that responsibility knowing that many of them would not come home. >> and i began telling the troops and the young people at the service academies probably in 2008 that i had come to feel a personal responsibility for each of them as though they were my own sons and daughters and that -- that was the time. >> and that's why i come back to our earlier part of our conversation when you look back and you made these decisions and obviously the commander in chief, president of the united states, he was ultimately in charge, were these the right decisions? >> well, and i think history

will have to judge. >> mr. secretary, thank you so much. thank you for writing this book "duty: memoirs of a secretary of war." >> thank you, wolf. coming up, we'll get opinions about my interview that i just had with robert gates. and the potential dangers for all of us. that's coming up. ♪

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let's gets reaction about my

interview with former secretary robert gates. joining me is john king, fareed zakaria, what did you think of the defense secretary? >> well, he's a very impressive man. i thought it was an excellent interview, wolf. i thought what came through more than anything was the seriousness with which he took these decisions. he was very honest about the areas that he was wrong but what you sense when you listen to a man like robert gates is how many decisions in foreign policy are not 90/10 decisions. they are 51/49 decisions. you have other evidence suggesting one course of action and another course. it's a judgment call and we look back on it and we assume it was so obvious because we know how it worked out, whether it's the libyan intervention, when it's

the bin laden raid, whether it's the one you spend the most time on correctly, the iraq war. at the time, all of these seemed much more even-handed and then you get history and it, in a sense, tells you what the answer was. >> he's brutally blunt, john. that came through the interview and even more so in the book. >> and remember his history. worked on the national security council, cia, defense department, a holdover to the obama administration from the bush administration. he talks about his personal pain and anguish and i think he also tries to draw a road map for what he thinks washington could do better. he's harshly critical of this president, president obama, his former boss, the national security council getting involved in things that he believes in. he's a process guy and if you read the book it's clear and i've had several conversations with him when he was at the pentagon, he thinks congress has become a farce and that it's all stunts and politics.

and he's damning of the decay of the serious discourse. >> what do you think? >> i'm fascinated by what he said about the vice president the fact that those two key members of the inner circle is a story i cannot get enough of. >> back in 2003 in the government he did not have a direct role. he was outside the government at the time. so many will say off the record privately, if we knew then back in march of 2003 what we know now, the u.s. would have never deployed a few hundred troops to iraq and get involved in that messy situation. why are they so ready to acknowledge that it was a blunder? >> i think it's a very important question, wolf, and you pressed him very well on it. i think the reason is this. they cannot face up to the

reality. then you have to tell the troops, the men and women who robert gates so rightly admires, that they were sent there in vain. that this was a mistake. who wants to be the last man or the first man to die from a mistake? but you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about -- we didn't just, you know, fail to create a democracy. we got involved in a very complicat complicated sectarian struggle. we overturned a sunni regime, and then watched as sectarian civil war brewed and then kept trying to say to each of them, can't you guys -- robert gates was still saying if only maliki would reach out to the sunnis more. it was a hard-lined serious thug harbored by syria for 15 years. ever since he's come in power, he's had ten years to reach out to the sunnis.

why do we think he's going to do it now? we're in the midst of something so deep that we can't quite acknowledge the magnitude of the error. >> these tensions, john, the religious tensions, ethnic tensions that have been going on have been going on for hundreds of years yet the u.s. officials believe that the united states can create democracy, create -- do some nation building and end what has been going on for so long. >> to fareed's point and you were pressing and trying to get the question, the commander in chief of that operation george bush will say i think i did the right thing. it's probably not to be expected that those underneath him, even secretary gates who came in and assumed the war in midstream but this is -- there is the debate among them of the powell doctrine versus the rumsfeld doctrine. your point about the sectarian violence goes back decades and decades and decades. aren't they going to go back to their old ways anyway?

most of them will now admit that the troop levels sent in initially left them unable to try and have a firmer or solid initial piece and then the sectarian stuff bubbled up quicker than it should have. >> and so many experts have told me, iraq is probably not going to have a happy ending when all is said and done as far as the u.s. is concerned and almost certainly afghanistan as well. karzai to merge as pro american democratic features, you're living in a dream world. does it really make any difference if the u.s. stays in there three years, five years, or whatever? >> i think it's a question for sure and i think one that the white house is going to be confronting this year. i think one of their big, you know, focus this year is transitioning out of afghanistan in a way that, you know, shows that they are confident at implementing and following what they say they are going to do. >> thank you, guys. important stuff that will

continue to be debated for many years. appreciate it very much. when we come back, other news we're following. what's behind a growing scandal surrounding people who command and guard the country's nuclear weapons arsenal? we're digging deeper. and west virginia, the contaminated water there cleared for most of the general population so why are pregnant women still being advised, stay away from that water? we're going there for a live report. 7 million investors... oh hey, neill, how are you? [ male announcer ] ...you'd expect us to have a highly skilled call center. kevin, neill holley's on line one. ok, great. [ male announcer ] and we do. it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. [ male announcer ] and we do. humans -- we are beautifully imperfect creatures, living in an imperfect world. that's why liberty mutual insurance has your back, offering exclusive products like optional better car replacement,

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a massive cheating scandal, just the latest in a string of shocking troubles plaguing the u.s. forces.

brian todd has been looking into this. what have you been finding out? >> wolf, we have been looking into these problems for months now and we've seen serious misconduct. these are the commanders and junior officers with their hands on america's most powerful weapons and the problems don't seem to have a quick fix. they stand ready to unleash nuclear fury. a job with awesome responsibility, prestige. but there's a clear patterns of problems among the men who guard the nuclear arsenal and there's not a simple cause. why would several air force officers at a montana base cheat on a proficiency exam? perfection is the expectation so there's pressure involved. >> different types of pressure can affect the junior and senior officers at nuclear commands. general michael kerries with

removed from his post after he went on a womanizing and drinking binge in russia. >> the job is extremely stressful. any command position is an extremely pressured job because it's the air fighting element of the air force. >> the junior officers, the ones deep inside these silos, the people with their hands on the switches face the pressures of staying proficient jeffrey was a nuclear missileer. >> 24 hours or more underground, days where it could go to 48, 72, you're under the ground. there's no opportunity to take a break or take a run. it's a tedious nature of the job. >> aside from the disciplinary

issues, morale could be a problem where a force's mission is no longer considered a top priority. >> if there's one area of a defense budget where we shouldn't be cutting costs, >> reporter: with all these problems, has safety been compromised in top military officials stress it has not. the secretary of the air force saez the pentagon has, quote, great confidence in the security and the effectiveness of the icbm force. but secretary hagel, the current secretary of defense, went to one of these facilities last week to reassure some of the officers and tell them that their mission is very critical, they've got to toe the line. >> very shocking stuff when you think about it. the do not use order lifted for most of the west virginia population. so why are pregnant women still being advised to stay away from the water? we'll go there for a live report. [ male announcer ] we could say a lot about the most track-tested is ever... but the truth is...

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one week since hundreds of thousands were told not to drink contaminated water in west virginia. health officials are now advising pregnant women in that state to continue drinking only bottled water even though it's been cleared, the water, for most of the general population. jean casarez is in charleston, west virginia w the very latest. >> reporter: jacqueline bevan and her family have been waiting for eight days to be able to use their tap water. at the same time, the cdc is recommending, out of an abundance of caution, that pregnant women don't drink the water until there's no trace of the chemical any more. >> we just don't know what we're drinking. if the cdc is saying that

pregnant women can't drink it, it goes for all of us. >> reporter: if this isn't safe for pregnant women, how can we say that anyone is safe drinking the water? >> that's a good question. there's a lot of unknowns about this potential chemical that have the chance to do some harm to humans. >> reporter: it was soon after the chemical leak federal authorities determined that one part per million of mchm could be deemed safe to consume but they also admit that was based on limited information. >> right now it's an acceptable standard. i don't think anybody can genuinely call it a safe standard. >> reporter: cnn had independent water testing done which showed the chemical was present in water deemed safe but well below the one part per million threshold. that water is now being used by more than 200,000 people in the affected area. dr. gupta, director of the

kanawha charleston health department said that now people are using tap water hospital visits spiked midweek. >> they report right after they've taken a shower, they have this rash. we've had people walk in here with scary-looking rashes. >> reporter: after after earlier chemical explosion in this area, the chemical safety board recommended in 2011 that west virginia give dr. gupta the authority to establish a hazardous chemical release prevention program which could have included monitoring the chemicals stored just upriver from charleston's water treatment plant. >> that would have helped us at least to have an idea to develop some sort of a comprehensive program in order to ensure that those chemicals are being stored in a safe matter. >> reporter: but the state decided not institute that program and with the safety of this chemical in question, this family isn't sure they want to

stay in west virginia. >> i have a child and i want to raise him here. and i want to know that he's going to grow up safe. i feel like west virginia's letting me down. >> reporter: while the people are still consumed and worried about their tap water, the state of west virginia department of environmental protection is concerned about where freedom industries is currently storing the rest of their chemical. they went there this week, did an inspection and they've issued five violations, among other things, holes in the walls where the container canisters are stored. wolf? >> still many, many unanswered questions. pretty shocking story as well. just ahead in our next hour, we're learning new information about the man at the center of the bridge scandal embroiling the new jersey governor chris christie. stay with us.

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happening now, subpoenas are issued in the new jersey traffic scandal. chris christie says he's ready to meet any test but his office has just hired an outside lawyer. can christie still conduct business and politics as usual? did a christie aide go rogue? new details on the appointee who personally directed the lane closures which brought a city to its knees. a new bombshell revelation about nsa snooping just as president obama gets set to unveil major reform to the surveillance programs. i'm wolf blitzer, and you're in "the situation room." first 20 subpoenas have just gone out to the -- in the new jersey traffic scandal. chris christie is digging in for the long haul. expecting marathon investigations into the gridlock orchestrated by aides. facing a veteran prosecutor,

christie's office has now hired a law firm of its own, but the governor was at the scene of his greatest success today, vowing to carry on. we'll have full coverage beginning with our chief congressional correspondent dana bash. >> the source close to christie told mow that earlier this week he called a meeting of his top aides and he told them there are big lessons for all of them to learn in how to manage the office. he also told his staff a lot of their time and energy will be consumed with the multiple investigations going on, but they've got to get back to work. that's what he tried to do today. it's this kind of image that made chris christie's popularity soar. >> and never having it before. >> reporter: comforting and helping victims of hurricane sandy. today's trip to the jersey shore was all about recapturing that. >> there's all kinds of challenges, as you know, that come every day out of nowhere to

test you. >> reporter: back in trenton, the governor's office hired an outside law firm to help with an internal review of the bridge closing fiasco. cnn is told christie has not hired his own personal lawyer. >> i'm as focused on completing this mission as i was when i woke up on the morning of october 30th, 2012. and nothing will distract me from getting that job done. nothing. >> reporter: that won't be easy. soon after democrats in new jersey's senate unanimously authorized a special committee to investigate george washington bridge lane closures in september. and the man who put illinois governor rod blagojevich in jail, reid schar, was named special prosecutor for another investigation by the state assembly. >> thank you. >> reporter: that committee issued its first subpoena, 20 of them, in warp speed. all of this as christie pledged to stay focused on new jersey constituents. >> you all gave me a resounding vote of support on november 5th.

>> reporter: but national politics will dominate his schedule this weekend. fund-raisers in florida for the governor and the republican governors association which he chairs, and events with potential future donors hosted by home depot founder ken langone. he said his troubles have not driven away voters. in fact, more signed up to see him since the scandal exploded. as for democrats they clearly still see christie as a formidable force in the future. so much so that the democratic national committee chairwoman debbie wasserman schultz, plans to hold events in florida, except those are all private. >> she's in florida, too. >> but she'll go all over the state for this. >> thanks very much for that report. chris christie's administration facing multiple investigations a tt state and federal levels. a state assembly panel has just issued the first subpoenas. democrat loretta weinberg is the leader of the new jersey senate

and heads its committee looking into the traffic scandal. she joins us now for more. what are the major unanswered questions you're looking at right now? >> well, the major unanswered question is the question. who actually ordered this and why? you know, let's focus on the fact of what happened here. the busiest bridge in the world was put on -- was the cause of a tremendous traffic jam that put thousands of people in jeopardy, that caused school children to be late on the first day of school. that was the week of the 9/11 memorial. all of that was done, and we have not yet heard an answer as to who really ordered it. we know that there was an e-mail directly from the governor's office to david wildstein at the port authority that signified move ahead with the traffic jam. >> so you don't know yet,

senator, why this decision was made to shut down those lanes? >> that is the biggest unanswered question, wolf. >> what do you suspect? >> you know, there are so many theories out there, so many theories, and maybe all of them are plausible and maybe they all came into play in this, i'm not ready to speculate on that. that's why we have the senate committee with subpoena power. but let me point out that i have been going to port authority meetings in october, november, december. i contacted one of our port authority commissioners, pat shuber, with copies to david sampson, the chairperson of the port authority and to the governor himself, back in september when this happened asking for an explanation. i am absolutely outraged that i learn today that that port authority, whom i have appeared before for four months now, sat their silently, never answered that today finally they answered

senator rockefeller and said, there was no evidence of a traffic study. they sat there for four months. every single new jersey commissioner i would say is in dereliction of their responsibility to the people we all represent in new jersey particularly the people i represent in my area including fort lee and engelwood and leonia and teaneck, all the surrounding towns, palisades park, that suffered through those traffic jams. this is horrendous. >> who created that false report, that suggestion that there was some sort of traffic study under way? >> that was done by the deputy executive director of the port authority, mr. bill barone. >> and he resigned. >> but he resigned after he went on november 25th to the assembly transportation committee, not under subpoena, nor under oath, went voluntarily and claimed that there was a traffic study and that this was an issue of

fairness because somehow there were some kind of private roads from ft. lee to the george washington bridge. absolutely a madeup cover-up. and i've been saying it since then. so the fact that i've appeared before the port authority -- these are men who are supposedly responsible for the biggest infrastructures in our region for the safety, for the new building, for transportation projects, for hundreds of thousands of people and for hundreds of millions of dollars. and they sat there for four months silently. >> we know the state assembly has issued these 20 subpoenas. i assume you're going to start issuing your own subpoenas. to the same people or different people? >> hopefully we'll work in conjunction with one another, but we are going to start off by issuing subpoenas for documents from chairman david sampson's office, from commissioner pat shuber's office, who i had a personal interchange with who

promised me back in september he'd get to the bottom of this, and from the governor's incoming chief of staff, regina agia who is also cc'd on some of these e-mails. >> what kind of timeline do you expect for this investigation? >> you know, i'm not so sure that it's going to happen that quickly. but i would like to see us expedite it as quickly as we can, to get to the real answers. if the governor really wants to get to the bottom of this, he'll urge all of the people that are surrounding him to come and tell the truth and not redact various items from e-mails and to come clean. i cc'd the governor, i have yet to receive an answer from the governor. now maybe i'm on that list that has become so infamous of all the people the governor doesn't answer. but i wrote the letter on

senator stationery, i'm majority leader of the new jersey state senate and i have yet to receive an answer from any of these people. >> i just want to wrap it up, senator, is there any evidence at all anything that you see that directly links the governor, the governor, per se, the governor personally, that there is something that would suggest he has been lying over these past few days? >> no. there is not any kind of direct evidence like that except that four people around the governor, two were fired, two were forced to resign under pressure and i believe what the governor is most responsible for is creating an environment in his office and in fact in political circles in our state of an environment of this kind of behavior is acceptable. that's what i think the governor needs to answer for and he hasn't done that yet. >> loretta wineberg is the state majority leader.

thank you for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. >> straight ahead extraordinary new details on the christie ally who personally directed the lane closures and threw that stre of ft. lee into gridlock. was he acting on his own? they hired a prosecutor who once put a former governor in jail. so how tough is this showdown going to be? your eyes really are unique. in fact, they depend on a unique set of nutrients. [ male announcer ] that's why there's ocuvite to help protect your eye health. as you age, your eyes can lose vital nutrients.

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the internet of everything is changing everything. cisco. tomorrow starts here. we're learning exclusive new details about the man at the center of the traffic scandal, a christie political ally who held a job created especially for him. did he have a direct connection to the governor or did he simply go rogue? let's turn to cnn's chris frates

of cnn's investigations. what are you finding out? >> we're finding out that while governor christie has distanced himself from david wildstein we're learning interesting new details from sources inside the port authority. time for some traffic problems in ft. lee? got it. with that two-word response, david wildstein helped set off a scandal that threatens to derail new jersey governor chris christie's second term and maybe even his presidential ambitions. and now cnn is learning new information about wildstein, the man who occupied a key post at the port authority of new york and new jersey and is at the center of the bridgegate scandal. he refused to answer questions from state lawmakers last week. >> i assert my right to remain silent. >> reporter: wildstein's position was created just for him at the direction of the governor's office. according to a former employee familiar with port authority hires practices. indeed, wildstein's post didn't

even exist before he filled it in 2010 according to port authority documents examined by cnn. before christie became governor, there were only four positions in the top new jersey office at port authority. christie increased the number to six. personally directed the lane closures on the george washington bridge in september and that's thrown christie into the center of multiple investigations over whether it was political retaliation. the disclosures come in new documents today released by the state commerce committee. they painted a picture of a man who went rogue, closing lanes without proper procedures despite warnings of traffic backups and safety risks. christie distanced himself from wildstein after the story broke and the two attended the same high school. >> we weren't friends in high school. we weren't acquaintances in high school. >> high school acquaintances pursued by cnn backed up the

story. tony hope said the two couldn't be more different. >> nobody said a bad thing about chris. he was as popular as a person could be. and david was very quiet. also extremely intelligent. but didn't have great social skills. >> reporter: by the time wildstein was hired at the authority authority in 2010, he was being introduced to people as a good friend of christie's, according to a source, although the governor says the two are not close. >> i could probably count on one hand the conversations i've had with david since he worked at the port authority. >> reporter: sources tell cnn wildstein was viewed as christie's eyes and ears scrutinizing agency business on the governor's behalf. they believed he spoke for the governor and, in turn, watched what they said about him. though the governor's office says this is inaccurate and has been, quote, mischaracterized by the media. christie's office also provided us with this response. as the governor immediate clear

last week, david wildstein is not a childhood friend and his interactions with him over the last four years have been limited. last month he appointed a new leader at the port authority with a proven record of rooting out corruption and reforming government agencies to help lead the agency. now, when chris christie came into office, the governor said the port authority was on the list of agencies that needed to be reformed. kind of ironic that the governor targeted this port authority for improvement and now it's come back to bite him a little bit. >> yes, certainly has. chris frates reporting. let's dig deeper now. investigators are moving to try to get to the bottom of this entire scandal with the first of 20 subpoenas already going out. let's bring in our senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin. what do you make of this very quick decision to issue these subpoenas, 17 involving individuals, 3 involving organizations. >> one reason you act so quickly when you're a prosecutor is that it puts all of the recipients of the subpoenas on notice that, if

you do anything to the documents that are subpoenaed, that's a crime. that's obstruction of justice. so as soon as you have that subpoena in your hand, you know that you better not destroy those e-mails, you better not destroy the documents or you might be in some extremely serious trouble. it will probably take a while for all those documents, all those records to be produced, but it's certainly an aggressive first step on the part of the special counsel. >> what do you know about reid schar, the special prosecutor? he was clearly involved in the rod blagojevich now spending 14 years in jail. what do you know about this prosecutor that's now been brought into this investigation? >> well, he's a very respected prosecutor from chicago. the u.s. attorney's office for the northern district of illinois. his boss was patrick fitzgerald, whom i'm sure a lot of people remember, a very well regarded prosecutor there. and i think what's most significant about him is he's not from new jersey, he's not even from the east coast. he comes from an entirely

different political culture, legal culture, so he doesn't owe anybody anything. and he will come to this with open eyes and no loyalties and, you know, let the chips fall where they may, as i'm sure the idea behind his appointment. >> and we know the governor today named his own lawyer, an individual named randy mastro who was pretty close to rudy giuliani, the former mayor of new york city. >> and a very well regarded white collar crime lawyer in new york. someone who is also known, even though those standards, as very, very tough. there's a famous law firm in washington called patton, bogs and blow and randy mastro has been in a fight with that law firm over ecuador that has driven patent blogs to very unusual problems. very unusual that you can have one lawyer almost bring down a major law firm, but that's

indicative of how tough randy mastro is. it's a signal that the governor may say in his state of the state address, i'm going to cooperate. if you're lawyer is randy mastro, you won't be going out of your way to cooperate. randy mastro's job is to protect the governor and he'll do it like he does everything, very aggressively. >> there's a conflict there, you'll tell your client, don't say anything. but for political reasons he's the governor of new jersey, the chairman of the republican governors association. he's got to talk. >> he's got to talk, but you can be sure that governor christie is going to be saying things like, as he's already said, i've already addressed those questions. one thing to be able to questions about your duties as governor, but whether you interact about the details of this matter is another question. i don't expect randy mastro will be allowing the governor to engage about this every day. he is going to keep this under

ta tight rein and look for conflict ahead because, you know, in the production of documents, who's cooperating, how much they're cooperating, that is where these matters often turn into conflict and you'll see it here, i bet. >> everybody seems to be lawyering up right now, as they say. jeffrey, thanks very much. up next, stunning new revelations about nsa spying even as president obama getting ready to announce new reforms for the surveillance programs. on this the anniversary of desert storm, a tribute to someone who helped put cnn on the map. >> the skies over baghdad have been illuminated. [ tires screech ] [ car alarm chirps ] ♪ [ male announcer ] we don't just certify our pre-owned vehicles. we inspect, analyze, and recondition each one, until it's nothing short of a genuine certified pre-owned mercedes-benz

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new bombshell about the extent of nsa snooping. the guardian newspaper which has broken many of the leaks reports the agency has now collected millions of text messages. all this comes just as president obama getting ready to announce reforms to the nsa surveillance programs. let's bring in jim sciutto. what do you make of this latest report in "the guardian"? >> this based on more documents stolen by edward snowden, released by "the guardian," not coincidentally the day before the president makes his big speech. but another tool of the nsa that shows its extent to watch and listen, collecting 2 million texts a day, other information, location, contact details, credit card details. "the guardian" implied this was done indiscriminately.

this statement saying any implications that the agency's collection was arbitrary and unconstrained is false. they collected only against valid foreign intelligence target, which is a response we've heard from them before. >> tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern, he'll go to the justice department and announce the reforms he's willing to accept. >> and the debate on what those reforms are are continuing up to the final minute. >> really? >> showing the sensitivity of the issues to be decided. what happens tomorrow, whether you're satisfied or not, is going to depend on what you're expectations are. if you're expected bulk collection to end, it's not going to happen. even his intelligence reform panel did not recommend that. they said even though this kind of collection has not prevented attack up to now, it may in the future. it's an essential tool. and they say kind of like we say about terrorists. terrorists only have to be successful once. a program like this only has to be successful once to be

important and it seems the president has indicated that he has found it is a valuable weapon in the arsenal of fighting terrorism. but there will be changes. some already coming into play. one is that you need white house approval, senior approval to be monitoring the discussions, the communications of the leaders of allied countries. you know what pushback, what anger there was when it was discovered that the nsa was spying on the leaders of some of our closest countries. a public advocate going on in this foreign surveillance court. you'll see changes like that but you won't see the end of these programs. >> we'll see what he says about listening in on the conversations of world leaders of friendly countries. >> and they'll be listening to what he's saying. >> live coverage 11:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning. jim sciutto, thanks very much. finally we want to congratulate a cnn veteran who is being honored tonight. my friend and former colleague bernard shaw. he's being inducted into the national association of black journalists hall of fame. that's happening on a very

fitting day, one of the most important moments in bernie's career and the history of cnn. it happened 23 years ago today. that would be the beginning of the first iraq war, "operation desert storm." bernie, along with reporters john hol laman and peter arnett made television history from the ninth floor of baghdad's al rasheed hotel. >> the skies of baghdad are being illuminated. >> he had the microphone first. the instinct to broadcast, to be there. he didn't waver. he didn't hesitate. >> no one knew whether the boys in baghdad would survive that night. a billion people watched around the world and cnn, as we know it, was born. >> what a day. i remember it very, very vividly. congratulations to bernie shaw from all of us here at cnn. when i joined 24 years ago, he was a huge, huge help to me. thanks very much for watching.

i'm wolf blitzer in washington. "crossfire" starts right now. tonight on "crossfire," the battle lines for 2016 and front-runners already facing problems. from scandal and recovering from a superstorm -- >> and nothing will distract me from getting that job done. nothing. >> to benghazi. >> she couldn't be on tv to talk about what happened in the state department because she was distraught? >> on the left, stephanie cutter, on the right, newt gingrich. in "the crossfire" -- paul begala, a democratic strategist and tom delay, the former house majority leader. the upcoming fights to control congress and the white house tonight on "crossfire." welcome to "crossfire." i'm stephanie cutter on the left. >> i'm newt gingrich on the

right. in the crossfire tonight, two of the most successful and most feared political minds in the business. and we're going to talk clinton and christie, the two presidential front-runners, who are both having a pretty bad week. let's start with hillary clinton and national security. there's a new senate report on benghazi which left four americans, including the united states ambassador, dead. this report is a lot bigger than just hillary clinton. it not only concludes the attack was preventable, it says both the u.s. state department and the intelligence community made major mistakes. while clinton isn't mentioned by name in the report, she clearly is the person most at risk and who has the most to lose, which undoubtedly is why she continues to behave as if she was never the secretary of state, doesn't know what you're talking about and can't imagine why we keep discussing it. >> or maybe it's that republicans are absolutely