were okay because the doctors were prescribing them to me. if the doctors are giving it to me, i'm going to take it. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: our lead story tonight: bedlam erupted in the heart of washington, with a chaotic car chase and shooting that ended before stunned tourists, lawmakers and congressional staffers. there were unconfirmed reports that the lone suspect was killed. a police officer was injured. the violent conclusion-- with gunshots and a car crash-- came just steps from the capitol grounds after a chase that began at the white house. capitol police say a woman-- apparently with a child in her car-- tried to ram security barricades near the executivepp mansion, then raced up constitution avenue. capitol police chief kim dine: >> a vehicle in vicinity of white house that apparently attempted to pass barricade. attempted to be stopped by secret service uniformed division. they pursued the vehicle. it struck one of our vehicles here at 2nd and con, 1st and con and ultimately ended up, crashed into one of our barricades. >> ifill: an eyewitness outside the capitol, described watching the scene unfold. >> the cops surrounded them and had guns drawn and were yelling to get out of the car and it swung out and somehow it got past. >> ifill: senators sherrod brown of ohio and bob casey of pennsylvania were also outside. >> we heard something. >> about how many shots? >> five or six but there must have been some before because the police cars-- because bob first said, "why are all these police cars..." >> they were already there. >> first, we thought it was like a motorcade but it wasn't apparently. >> ifill: inside the capitol building, people were told to shelter in place, many in the dark, as the situation outside remained active. a park police helicopter hovered near the capitol dome, after police called for help. less than an hour after it began, the all clear was sounded, people were cleared to leave the building, and the house went back into session. todd zwillich is a reporter for wnyc and public radio international's "the takeaway." he was on capitol hill today and is there with us tonight. todd, where were you when all that unfolded? >> i was indoors in the senate press gallery covering the government shutdown and having bit of a lull in the afternoon because negotiations had been at a standstill. then word started to spread there was a lockdown notice over the p.a. system in the capitol. really i learned first about it on twitter. a couple of my colleagues were in front of the capitol building having a smoke, heard the shots across the capitol grounds, put it on twitter immediately. i grabbed my gear and ran outside and by that time there were capitol police running through the building. some of them with weapons drawn, but most of them just with them down telling people the building was on lockdown. we were able to get out at that time because the incident had just occurred and then we went outside to try and find out what was going on. >> we know now this started at the white house and this chase went up constitution avenue about a mile away, ended up at the capitol before the gunfire erupted or at least that's the gunfire that killed this woman. do you have any sense of what the timeline was other than that? because by the time it got to you, this was well under way. >> not much except that we know it all happened very quickly. this was a high-speed chase so the latency between leaving the white house and arriving here on the capitol grounds with the chase, i'm speculating a bit, gwen, but it could not have been very long. when you watch the video-- as i know you have-- it's a high speed chase, about two miles down pennsylvania avenue, a little bit less from 15th and pennsylvania at the white house to the capitol grounds a few feet from where i'm standing. so on the order of minutes. >> ifill: most people outside of washington may not realize how many different law enforcement organizations are involved in something like this. as far as you know, the people involved in this case, in this shooting were the capitol police right? >> that's true except there were other police organizations involved giving chase from the white house remember. there was uniformed secret service. at a certain point d.c. metro police were involved. i can't tell you exactly when but apparently there was at least one d.c. metro car somewhere in the chase. u.s. park police were involved and the u.s. capitol police. >> ifill: and the one officer who was down is a park sflifr >> as far as i know. and we're hearing that officer was injured when the cruise evertruck a barrier or some object. that car is still down here on constitution avl not far from where i'm standing. it's mangled really badly. apparently in a high speed moment it struck some immovable object, maybe a barrier or tree or something else, not sure. but it does not appear to have been struck by the suspect because the -- i saw the suspect's car, it's relatively unscathed. not completely unscathed but dit nod cause the damage on that mangled cruiser. >> how about the suspect's car, were you able to see that? >> i was from a bit of a distance down the block but i was able to see it and i've seen it, of course, in better photographs from some of my colleagues. damaged, yes, but not mangled like a high-speed impact like the cruiser was. >> ifill: we're hearing tonight that the driver who was killed was a woman and that there was a one-year-old child in the car and that they appear -- at least there were connecticut plates on the car. have you heard anything more on that? >> a 34-year-old woman we're told with connecticut plates. i don't have much more than what you have. the police have confirmed that much. i will say this about the officer who is injured. we're hearing that senate majority leader harry reid has had a phone call with this officer who is conscious and in hospital and apparently doing okay. harry reid himself as a young man in the early '60s was a capitol police officer when he was in law school. he came up here and was an officer for money at that time so he's -- like everybody here, has a lot of affection for the capitol police so apparently got off the phone with that officer and reported through a spokesman that the officer is doing okay. >> ifill: of course, you've been on capitol hill covering the big government shutdown. the capitol police, are they affected by this? >> the affected? gwen, i'm sorry to say this kind of thing happens periodically. not necessarily shots fired or people dying but it's a fairly regular occurrence that people run barriers or roll through in a high-speed fashion. shutdowns and lockdowns and shelter in place scenarios aren't all that uncommon. so affected and phased i wouldn't say so. i think they're probably affected when one of their own is injured -- >> ifill: todd, what i spent whether they're being paid for their work this week. >> i beg your pardon. u.s. capitol police on back pay right now. which is to say they're not being paid at the moment. they're essential so they're working, not getting paychecks, expect to be paid once there is a solution to this government shutdown, they would be back paid to october 1. >> ifill: and congress is back at work tonight? >> both the house and senate have adjourn sod when you say "back at work" in a manner of speaking. there were house votes today, show votes. there is no agreement. you mentioned maybe movement on debt limit, i'm sure you'll talk about that but we're waiting around a lot for a deal and this incident today has really brought a lot of that into stark relief. >> ifill: we'll be talking about all of that later in the program. todd zwillich, thanks so much. >> pleasure. >> woodruff: in other news, the incident outside the capitol diverted attention, for a time, from the ongoing drama over the government shutdown. negotiations were at a standstill, as president obama and house speaker john boehner fired verbal volleys back and forth. we'll have more on this after the news summary. the labor department announced today it will not release the september jobs report tomorrow, because of the shutdown. meanwhile, wall street lost ground on worries about the stalemate in washington. the dow jones industrial average lost 136 points to close at 14,996. the nasdaq fell more than 40 points to close at 3,774. after the market closed, twitter released filing documents on its initial public offering of stock. it said it hopes to raise $1 billion. at least 114 people died early today when a crowded boat sank near a tiny italian island. many scores more were missing and feared dead. the vessel went down in the mediterranean-- off the island of lampedusa-- with up to 500 african migrants on board. matt fry of "independent television news" filed this report. some of the images may be disturbing. >> reporter: they have been fishing bodies out of the waters since dawn. so far no children and only three of the estimated one hundred women on board have been saved. the head of the rescue team had never seen anything as bad as this. >> ( translated ): this was dramatic and tragic from every point of view. among the victims were many children. it's horrible, they had new shoes, signs of hope. it is really devastating. >> reporter: the cause of the tragedy seemed to have been a fire on board the ship, lit by the passengers to try and alert nearby vessels that their engine had broken. >> ( translated ): the first witness reports we heard three hours ago, suggest that the boat caught fire and because of this everyone pushed forward which caused the boat to overturn and >> reporter: the dead came mainly from eritrea. like tens of thousands of others they undertake this costly odyssey in search of a more prosperous life in europe. the final stage of their journey, the short crossing by boat to lampedusa, should be the easiest. in rome the pope expressed his profound grief for the victims today. >> ( translated ): the word disgrace comes to mind, it's a disgrace! ( applause ) >> reporter: the disgrace of desperation that drives families to risk their lives in search of a better one. it was precisely to highlight this that pope francis traveled to lampedusa in july. until today the victims of this very modern migration had often remained invisible to the wider world. a few days ago, this was the grisly scene on a beach in sicily when 13 migrants also mainly from eritrea and egypt drowned just yards away from shore. >> woodruff: in syria, six major rebel groups demanded today that other factions stop fighting each other over a key border town near turkey. a group tied to al-qaeda has been battling fighters affiliated with a western-backed group. it's the latest example of deepening divisions within rebel ranks. more on this, later in the program. secretary of state john kerry is defending diplomatic openings to iran, over its nuclear program. he addressed the issue today for the first time since israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu warned against trusting iran's new president. on a visit to tokyo, kerry said the u.s. has to find out if tehran's nuclear efforts can be stopped by peaceful means. >> we have an obligation. it would be diplomatic malpractice of the worst order not to examine every possibility of whether or not you can achieve that, before you ask people to take military action to do what you have to do in order to prevent something from happening. >> ifill: at the same time, kerry said the u.s. won't be played for suckers. in washington, the chief u.s. nuclear negotiator, wendy sherman, said only concrete and verifiable actions by iran will bring relief from economic sanctions. russia evacuated its embassy in libya today, a day after it was attacked by an armed mob. the assault followed the death of a libyan air force officer, allegedly at the hands of a russian woman. one of the attackers was killed, but none of the russian staff was injured. embassy officials and their families crossed the border into tunisia today, and will fly to moscow tomorrow. 13 members of the internet hacking group anonymous are facing a federal indictment in virginia. the hackers allegedly attacked government agencies, financial institutions, and other major organizations. court documents say it was all part of a campaign dubbed "operation payback." the u.s. gulf coast has begun preparing for possible evacuations, now that tropical storm karen has formed off mexico. it's the first named tropical system to threaten the u.s. mainland this year and could grow into a hurricane as it moves northward. alerts have been posted from southeast louisiana to the florida panhandle. still to come on the "newshour": one of the republicans ready to deal on the federal budget; the debt ceiling dilemma; military veterans addicted to painkillers and the al qaeda fighters in syria. >> ifill: the third day of the government shutdown was another day without progress on capitol hill. as a second major fiscal deadline drew near. "newshour" congressional correspondent kwame holman begins our coverage. >> my simple message today is-- call a vote. call a vote!8"÷ >> reporter: the president used a stop today at a maryland construction firm to blame the shutdown squarely on house speaker john boehner. and, he challenged the speaker to bring up a government funding bill with no partisan strings attached. >> the only thing that is keeping the government shut down; the only thing preventing people from going back to work, and basic research starting back up, farmers and small business owners getting their loans-- the only thing that's preventing all that from happening, right now, today, in the next five minutes, is that speaker john boehner won't even let the bill get a yes or no vote, because he doesn't want to anger the extremists in his party. >> reporter: the speaker fired back in a statement, saying the president is taking a my-way-or- the-highway approach, by rejecting any changes to the health care law. the long-distance exchange came after the president met face to face with boehner and the other congressional leaders wednesday evening. afterward, boehner summed up things this way. >> we had a nice conversation, a light conversation, but at some point we've got to allow the process that our founders gave us to work out. i would hope that the president and my democratic colleagues in the senate would listen to the american people and sit down and have a serious discussion above resolving these differences. >> reporter: today, the senate's democratic majority leader harry reid said his side is ready for that serious discussion, but only after house republicans give way on the spending bill. >> open the government and we'll negotiate with you on anything you want to negotiate with. i outlined anything that he'd want to talk about. discretionary spending, health care, anything you want to talk about with health care that includes obamacare. but open the government; get the debt ceiling out of here. >> reporter: as reid suggested, the shutdown standoff already is merging, at least rhetorically, with the deadline two weeks off, when the government will hit its borrowing limit and could default on its debts. in a report today, the treasury department said the economic effects of a default have the potential to be catastrophic. the president made clear again today that lifting the debt limit is not up for debate. >> there will be no negotiations over this. ( applause ) the american people are not pawns in some political game. you don't get to demand some ransom in exchange for keeping the government running. you don't get to demand some ransom for keeping the economy running. >> reporter: through his spokesman, boehner gave the assurance the country will not default, but also said any increase must include spending cuts and other provisions. in the meantime, with the shutdown in its third day, house republicans advanced smaller spending bills to fund veterans' programs and salaries for national guard members. other measures, passed last night, would finance d.c. government operations, national parks and the national institutes of health. house majority leader eric cantor: >> we're trying to find the things that we can agree on in common where there is a majority vote, in both houses. certainly, the pediatric medical research, medical research for clinical trials is something, given the circumstances that i think we ought to get done. harry reid ought to take it up today. >> reporter: democrats again dismissed the plan as nothing but a political gimmick and the shutdown remained in place. >> ifill: with each side accusing the other of extremism, extortion and plain old political stubbornness, there are a lonely few still calling for some sort of compromise. among them, pennsylvania republican charlie dent, who joins us from the house now. welcome, congressman. so you have called for a clean, unadorned budget bill to be passed, which is not what your leadership talking about. why are you calling for that? >> well, first, let me say very clearly i, like many of my colleagues in the house on the republican side of the aisle, have very serious objections to the health care law. i voted to repeal it deshgs fund it, delay it. i've done everything but freak see it. but i do think late in the day on sunday that it was imperative that we pass a clean funding bill to keep the government running. i thought once we've reached that final vote that dealt with the health benefits and the individual mandate-- even though i support the policy-- i felt at that point if we sent that to the senate that would have guaranteed a government shutdown. that's where i parted ways with some of my republican colleagues but that said i do believe it's imperative that we do have a clean funding bill to fund the government. that was the intent of the republican leadership all along but obviously there were a few dozen folks in the house republican conference who weren't prepared to vote for a clean bill and that's why we're in the situation we're in right now. >> ifill: those same two dozen folks are saying that you would basically be caving in, giving up, if you were, to do what you're suggesting. what you saying to them? >> i would say absolutely not. it was the intent of the leadership to pass a resolution to fund the government and have a discussion with the administration and the senate with respect to some of the health care law provisions that we found objectionable and other perhaps entitlement changes, the sequester, and have those discussions in the context of the debt ceiling. understanding that at the end of this process it's acceptable to not -- unacceptable to not maintain the full faith and credit of the united states government. of course we'll have to raise the debt ceiling but it's appropriate to have discussions surrounding those debt ceiling issues. >> ifill: what kind of reaction are you getting from your constituents from lehigh valley, pennsylvania? >> most of my constituents, i think, share my view that while we have very serious concerns and misgivings with the health care law that we did not want to shut the government down to make that particular point. so i think many of my constituents do agree with me that this health care law has all sorts of problems and many of them would like to see it repeeled or replace ord changed or fixed but they also understand we have an obligation to govern. that we have to fund the government. as a member of congress i have an affirmative obligation to govern and get things done. i'm a member of the appropriations committee. i always said i'm on the one committee that has to get something done every year. we have to fund the government and if we fail in that very basic responsibility the american public loses trust in the institution of government and its leaders. it's simply an unacceptable place to be. >> the speaker is telling members he has no intention of not getting the debt ceiling limit raised and that would be kind of a breakthrough at this point. but what are the people -- what are you hearing within your caucus about the willing to deal on just that looming problem? >> some of us are working in a very bipartisan manner. i'm working with a good friend, representative ron kind from wisconsin, a democrat. he and a like minded group of republicans and democrats offered a suggestion to break the logjam, at least on the government funding piece. what we said, "why don't repeel the medical device tax, fund the government for six months at the sequestered level as requested by the republicans and pay for the repeal of the medical device tax-- something the democrats want-- to a pension smoothing or stabilization mechanism." i thought that was a win-win-win for everybody. >> ifill: how was that received? >> among the republicans and democrats it will not be well received on the far left because folks say we don't want to make any changes to the health care law and the folks on the extreme right will say well, anything short of a defund or delay is unacceptable. and what we're saying is this is an incremental progress, the democrats are acknowledge a defect with the law, this very onerous medical device tax and republicans are going to be able to get some incremental change. and the democrats get a victory here, too, in that we would pay for in the a responsible way that i believe would be broadly embraced by members of both parties. >> ifill: you have been been quoted as saying there's been a lot of bringsmanship and showmanship going on. would you say it's on your side of the aisle or the other side of the aisle? >> there's a lot of blame to go around. i think members of both parties and the american public are tired of the bringsmanship, tired of being taken to the edge and in this case we've gone over it with respect to the government shutdown. so i get tired of it and frustrated. i think this whole government shutdown could have been averted had some cooler heads prevailed. the senator from texas-- with all due respect-- raised a lot of expectations, i believe unrealistically. >> ifill: you're talking about senator ted cruz. >> yeah. so the house passed the bill to defund the health care law, obamacare, and the senator was unable to deliver the votes. the votes to defund it. so -- and i think we all knew that going in and once that occurred then swreshd stepped back and said okay, now let's get the government funded and then we can continue to debate with the deficiencys of the health care law-- and there are many-- on another day and another occasion but outside of the context of funding the government. >> ifill: let's talk about what it would take to get cooler heads to prevail. if, as you say, senator cruz has urged people toward the brink and there are members of the house who enjoy being on the brink-- or at least have not rejected being on the brink-- what does it take to pull you back at this point? >> the reality of the house of representatives is this: in the house republican conference there are 232 members and i believe somewhere between 180 to 200 on any given day are prepared to affirmatively govern this country and want to be part of whatever the solution is. there are a few dozen who don't share that same sense of governance so moving forward i believe the house is going to have to form bipartisan coalitions to enact must-pass pieces of legislation. we saw that this year with the fisk, hurricane relief and sandy. and my district was hit hard by sandy. i was out of power as well as 500,000 of my constituents. violence against women act. it happened with the no budget no pay when we first extended the debt ceiling with 200 republicans and the balance were democrats. >> ifill: but in this case not with the majority of the majority party, the hastert rule they call it. >> i hope there would be a majority of the majority but we have to fund the government with as many republican votes as we can and same with the debt ceiling, we're going to need a bipartisan coalition and i'm hoping there will be a strong support for both of these measures from both parties when we get to that final vote. that's the one that matters. >> ifill: pennsylvania republican charlie dent. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you so much for having me. >> woodruff: let's take a closer look now at these questions surrounding the federal debt limit and what's at stake. in its report today, the treasury department warned that should the government default on its debt obligations later this month, the economic impact could be widespread. it said, quote, "credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, interest rates could skyrocket and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse." we'll discuss what's behind those warnings in a moment. but let's start with some explanation about the debt ceiling. annie lowrey is a reporter for the "new york times" and joins us now. welcome back to the program. remind us what is the debt ceiling, why is it there? why is it needed? >> so it's a kind of secondary check on the amount that congress is spending. that's what it's designed to be. so every year congress decides the amount of deficit or surpluses they're going to run by deciding how much they'll spend and how much they'll take in in taxes and in the event they're running in the red-- as they generally are ---- treasury takes them and sells bonds on the bond market. so a debt limit is the cap on the total value of bonds treasury can sell. but the issue if that if the treasury can't raise that limit by itself, it needs congress to do it, if they don't have enough money to pay the bills they need to issue those bonds, they can't right now so it looks like they might have a cash crunch. the. >> woodruff: treasury has announced in the last few days that they expect the debt ceiling is going to be reached on october 17, that's just two weeks from now. what happens if that ceiling is not raised? >> if it isn't raised, it would have cash on hand, money coming in from tax receipts but that would be it they'd have no other way to pay the country's bills so starting on that date or sometime after that they wouldn't have enough money to pay the bills everyday and the united states would miss about 30% of its obligations in perpetuity until congress raised the ceiling again. >> woodruff: explain to us the difference between meeting obligations in say making social security payments, benefits, paying salaries of government workers versus making those bonds payments that are due. >> so treasury makes literally millions of payments a day and so just as you described, some of them go to social security recipients. some of them go to states. some of them go to contractors and then some of them go to bond holders who say, hey, i bought a ten-year bond ten years ago, i want my money back now. so the issue is it would be really bad if treasury didn't manage to meet some of its payments to states or social security recipients but they could basically say, you know what? we're going to be forced to pay you later. that would be awful but it probably wouldn't be catastrophic. the issue with the bonds is that if treasury didn't pay the bondholders back or the coupon payments it's required to make on those bonds they would be declared in default and it would basically throw a lot of sand into the gears of the entire financial system and you would have had a financial crisis. not just a small financial crisis but the mother of all financial crises because treasuries are so important to the functioning of financial markets. >> woodruff: and, in fact, what you just said is the kind of language treasury used today when it put out a -- this warning that said it that has potential to be catastrophic. it goes back and cites what happened in 2011 when congress flirted with not raising the debt ceiling. what did it say some of the consequences might be? >> so barring costs in some case -- borrowing costs in some cases rose. consumer confidence and business confidence plunged. the stock market took a hit which is obviously bad for businesses. it's also bad because it reduces household wet so you have that kind of weflt wrefkt people felt like they were poorer, they spent less and there's some evidence that it slowed the recovery down and the higher borrowing costs ended up costing the country billions of dollars even though they didn't actually get into an actual cash crunch situation. >> woodruff: so the people you talk to, annie lowry, the treasury paint this is dire picture saying that what could happen would be something even worse than what happened in 2008 with the financial collapse and recession. the people you talk to take that seriously. >> yeah, absolutely. so even just getting close to the limit would probably send waves of panic through the market. gettinging up to the limit, to the point treasury couldn't pay bills would be really bad and the prospect that treasury would not pay bondholders is just absolutely terrifying. there's some idea that treasury is forced to put bond holders first in order to keep the financial markets calm but it's not clear that they have the technical ability to the do that. part of the issue here is that the united states has never actually gone down this road. nobody exactly knows how this all would play all but the worst-case scenarios are really, really frightening and even just getting close is going to send fear us there the market. >> woodruff: there has been conversation-- and i think you used the word priorities-- what do we know about how the government could decide what its priorities were if something like this happened. in terms of what to pay. >> we don't know that much about it. the best information that we have coming from a treasury inspector general report and that indicates that treasury thinks probably the best option would be delaying some payments like we were talking about to maybe states or other folks that it needs to pay back and saying, you know, once the dealt limit is raised again we'll get your money to you. but the idea that they could change their computer systems fast enough in order to make that workable is something that's a real question mark. treasury itself has said that they think that missing any payments would be just about as bad as defaults. they think of that as default. they said think they of prioritization, putting bond holders first wouldn't be workable even though market participants think that in the case that they had to they would do that. >> woodruff: quickly, the white house made a point today of saying the president on his own would not raise the debt ceiling thaichlt don't believe he has the authority to do that. i gather there's not much dispute about that. >> no. some folks have said that the 14th amendment grants him the authority to go ahead and pay the bills even though the debt limit hasn't been raised. let treasury start issuing new debt. the administration has outright rejected that approach. other administrations in the future might not but the obama administration is not going to do that. >> woodruff: annie lowrey with the "new york times," thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> ifill: next, a troubling account of the consequences of over-prescribing addictive painkillers to veterans. the death rate from overdoses of those drugs at veterans affairs hospitals is twice the national average. but data shows the v.a. continues to prescribe increasing amounts of narcotic painkillers to many patients. our story comes from the center for investigative reporting. the correspondent is aaron glantz. >> reporter: u.s. army specialist jeffrey waggoner received a funeral with full military honors. he was medically evacuated out of afghanistan in 2007, after he sustained a groin injury when a rocket propelled grenade exploded during a house-to-house search. but that's not what killed him. waggoner survived his deployment. he died back home. in this motel, just hours after being discharged from a department of veterans affairs hospital in oregon. while recovering from his wounds, waggoner's mental state deteriorated. he became addicted to painkillers. and the army sent him to the detox center at this v.a. hospital in roseburg to get clean. but the hospital continued to give him narcotics and after two months they released him with a massive cocktail of drugs, including 12 tablets of the painkiller oxycodone. since jeff's death his father greg has been trying to piece together what happened. >> i couldn't believe the amount of medications that were being prescribed to him. >> reporter: after he left the hospital, jeff went to the nearby motel. >> he picked up a six-pack of beer. he checked into a room. has a couple of beers. decides he's hungry and he goes next door to a restaurant next to the motel, orders up a plate of nachos and another beer and then becomes very groggy, >> reporter: the surveillance footage shows what happened next. jeff fumbles with the keys to his room, barely able to stand. he nods, then lurches forward and collapses. waggoner lay on the floor for an hour until the paramedics arrived. they tried to revive him, but it was too late. the state medical examiners report stated that in addition to the two beers, jeff consumed eight oxycodone pills along with tranquilizers and muscle relaxers that he got from the v.a. greg waggoner has never watched the video. he believes the v.a. was complicit in his son's death. >> the last thing you would think is that you have a child in the hospital trying to get care, that somebody would call at your door and tell you that he passed away. >> reporter: since waggoner's death five years ago, the roseburg hospitals narcotic prescription rate has continued to rise. we tried to interview the hospital director but our request was denied. last year, doctors in roseburg wrote more opiate prescriptions per patient than any v.a. hospital in the country, according to data obtained by the center for investigative reporting. the center analyzed 12 years of prescription data from the v.a. and found that prescriptions per patient for four highly addictive painkillers have surged by 270% since the war in afghanistan began, far outstripping the increase in patients. >> reporter: dr. stephen xenakis is a psychiatrist and retired army brigadier general. he says the data shows the agency is over-medicating patients as it struggles to keep up with their need for complex treatment. >> they're working in these clinics, they're very busy, they've got time constraints, they've got pressures, and giving a prescription which they know how to do, and they're trained to do, is almost, it's a default. >> reporter: xenakis says that prescription opiates actually hurt most veterans, rather than help them. >> if you've been exposed to a number of blasts and are already feeling the effects of the blasts and then you add a medication for pain like an opiate, that's going to make your thinking problems even worse, and not only that, you're going to feel more depressed. >> reporter: the v.a. has known about this problem for years in 2011, v.a. researchers published a study showing the fatal overdose rate among v.a. patients is nearly double the national average. and four years ago the agency adopted regulations designed to get doctors to use alternatives to prescription opiates. we spent a month trying to get someone from the v.a. to go on the record about prescription painkillers, but no one would talk to us. >> i want to get back to over- medication. >> reporter: the issue is drawing interest on capitol hill. in march, dr. robert petzel, the v.a.'s undersecretary for health, testified before the senate committee on veterans affairs. >> let me deal first with opioides, which is the most dangerous in my mind of our over medication issues. >> reporter: petzel says the v.a. uses opiates only as a last resort. >> when you're not able to manage the pain in any other way, it's opioides. and then there are very careful protocols about how that prescribing should be done. >> reporter: but the data shows the rate of prescriptions for opiates continues to rise. and across the country, we found veterans locked in a life and death struggle, addicted to painkillers they got from the v.a. >> reporter: in newport, new hampshire, tim fazio is trying to stay clean. fazio is a marine corps veteran who served in iraq and afghanistan. two years after he came home, he went to the v.a. for help. since then, v.a. doctors have provided him with nearly 4,000 oxycodone pills. >> i thought the painkillers were okay because the doctors were prescribing them to me. if the doctors are giving it to me, i'm going to take it, you know, and i mean, if it makes me feel good, i'm going to take 15 of them, you know what i mean? >> reporter: fazio deployed to fallujah and he survived a three-day firefight in afghanistan. he wasn't severely wounded in the war. he says he took the pills to blot out the guilt and shame of surviving when so many of his fellow marines died after coming home. his medical records show the v.a. knew he was an addict, and yet continued to dole out more opiates. at tim's family home in western massachusetts, his father mike fazio has built a basement shrine to his family's military legacy. >> this is my son tim. when he-- this is when he got out of boot camp, he was so proud. >> reporter: fazio says his son's life started spiraling out of control, after tim's best friend from the marine corps died. he encouraged tim to get help at the local v.a. hospital where doctors loaded him up on painkillers. >> that was the beginning and the end for him. >> reporter: tim was addicted and overdosed again and again. his parents kicked him out and he moved in with eric demetrion, another former marine. the two fed each others addictions, and when they ran out of pills, they bought heroin. eventually, tim realized he needed to move out. three months later, demetrion was dead of an overdose. today, fazio is living with his girlfriend. he's been clean for six months now, but staying off opiates hasn't been easy. in july-- after a violent confrontation landed him in a v.a. emergency room-- he was shocked when an agency doctor again prescribed oxycodone. tim says he filled the prescription and then stared at the bottle. >> i opened it a couple of times a day for probably three or four days to take one out. i said, "if i take this, i'm not going to be living where i am now. i'm going to be off and running again. they're going to send me on my way." so i flushed it. >> reporter: with his mind no longer deadened by opiates, flashbacks and anxiety make him angry and explosive. and so, despite that recent history, fazio still turns to the v.a. for help. he's up early this morning, waiting for a shuttle to take him to the v.a. my goal is to figure out where this rage, anxiety and all this is coming from when i've been sober. i got to figure out where that comes from and how to cope with that, i guess. >> reporter: the department of veterans affairs remains a refuge for tim, he says it's a place where he can surround himself with other veterans, men and women who have survived war, only to battle addiction at home. >> ifill: this story was originally part of a new investigative radio pilot called "reveal," that airs this week on many public radio stations. "reveal "is produced by the center for investigative reporting and prx. you can find a link to their related online material on our website. >> woodruff: and we turn to the conflict in syria. the united nations reported encouraging initial progress as international inspectors embarked on the second day of a mission to get rid of syria's chemical arsenal. but as ray suarez reports, the country's war rages on. >> suarez: rebels from the western-backed free syrian army fought government forces on the outskirts of damascus today. but to the north, at the key town of azaz, near the turkish border, it was rebel on rebel. fighters aligned with the free syrian army battled to retake azaz from the islamic state of iraq and the levant. that group, formerly al qaeda in iraq, seized the town last month. overnight, six other factions, including islamists, called for the al-qaeda group to withdraw. they said, "we consider them above spilling the blood of muslims." it all highlighted growing fissures within rebel ranks as hard-line islamists expand their role in the syrian war. >> what do we know about the opposition? >> suarez: last month, at a u.s. senate hearing, secretary of state john kerry was questioned on that very point about the radicals gaining sway. >> the opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership and more defined by its adherence to some, you know, democratic process. >> suarez: despite kerry's claim, the western-backed umbrella group, the syrian national council, suffered a blow just three weeks later. on september 24, al-nusra and other radical factions signed a letter rejecting the council's leadership. >> ( translated ): the brigades and battalions call on all military and civilian forces to unite under a clear islamic framework based on sharia law, which should be the sole source of legislation. >> suarez: the head of the syrian national council shot back last week at the united nations. >> ( translated ): in reality, when there was a disgreement, al-nusra didn't recognize the coalition, and we don't want recognition from them. i believe you won't be concerned >> suarez: now, the islamists are actively seeking to consolidate their hold in parts of northern and eastern syria, where they're strongest. there've been reports of jihadists instituting sharia law and carrying out public executions. for more on the fractures among secular and islamist opponents of syrian president bashar al-assad and how much military support the u.s. is actually giving to the opposition, i'm joined by. greg miller, a reporter for the "washington post." and andrew tabler, a senior fellow at the washington institute. andrew, the rivalries and resentments between secular and islamist fighters have long been well known in this two and a half year war, but is the blossoming of that resentment into open warfare something new? >> it is. there have been skirmishs in the past but the activities around the saz and the growing tensions between the extremists and those in the main line opposition have been exacerbated by a few things: frustrations following the chemical weapons use by the regime in august but also real frustration with the opposition coalition. particularly the political operatives who exist abroad and those are the main line yoounts which are inside of the country fighting the assad regime. the. >> suarez: if they're fighting each other does it benefit the assad regime? >> it certainly does. it divides their ranks but makes it clearer to see who's on the further right end of the sort of spectrum of groups within syria and who is more moderate and towards the left and i expect this is going to go on for some time. >> suarez: isn't this really in some ways just a prestaging of an eventual war in syria? because these groups have very different visions about the future of the country, don't they? >> particularly the announcement on the 24th of last month was concerning the establishment of -- and the end goal of an islamic state within syria which is not goal of the syrian opposition coalition which is the main coalition that the united states backs. >> suarez: greg miller, we saw senator john kerry a few moments ago endorsing the idea of helping them, defending the opposition. what kind of aid is the united states giving to forces in syria and does it amount to much? >> it doesn't amount to pa whole lot. it has increased over the last couple months. we've -- we know that the white house approved expanded aid to the moderate opposition forces some time ago but it took months for that to trickle into syria so the c.i.a. is providing light weapons to moderate groups and training at bases in jordan but on such a small, small scale that even officials who are involved in this program think it borders on inconsequential. >> so are they trying to ramp it up to something more consequential? >> well, the developments over the past month or two have sent out sort of alarms and so there's now been an effort by the c.i.a. to ramp up support to the moderate groups because they had been losing so much mow men numb the fight and ground to the harder line islamists. so the agency has sent additional paramilitary teams in to speed up this training they're engaged in in jordan but again, it will only lead to perhaps a couple hundred trained fighters per month emerging from these camps. and they're flowing into a fight that is so much bigger that those numbers are just not going to amount to much. >> suarez: because the future is so hard to contemplate, are there actually american official interests in a continued stalemate? that maybe assad should lose but not right away? >> i think that part of what is defined the c.i.a.'s mission is that the administration is seeking a political settlement eventually which sort of hinges on an eventual stalemate among these warring factions instead of a clear and powerful victor in the end and so part of this is the agency given the resources and authorities to bolster these moderate groups enough to that they can hang on and not lose but stopping short of giving them what they would need -- well short of what they would need to win. >> suarez: andrew, we saw the prepared videos that the rebel forces make of themselves. who are these guys? they syrians or coming in from other countries? >> it depends. most are syrians, but increasingly over time as the moderate groups haven't been sufficiently supported by the united states and other countries those more radical groups and foreign fighters from the arab gulf, from russia, chechens, even west yearners have streamed to syria. it's very easy to get to syria. it's unlike afghanistan which is very hard to reach so they're coming into syria and picking up weapons to fight the assad regime and fighting alongside of syrian forces so they don't necessarily join the syrian forces but they fight alongside them. the one biggest group is the islamic state of iraq. >> suarez: is it important, greg who they are, where they're coming from? does it create an x factor in this war that it's not just syrians fighting it anymore? >> well, obviously it's very important the syrians. i mean, even these islamist groups are going to great lengths to try to brand themselves as syrian even as many of their fighters and much of their capabilities stems from their ability to import fighters with deep experience from iraq and elsewhere but it also matters to the united states and to this administration which for whom a worst-case scenario is a chaotic state in the the end in which you have an attraction for jihadists from other countries and a place where it's hard for the united states or anybody else to suppress that threat. >> suarez: as you mentioned, syria is a porous place but it also borders a large number of countries. when you look at syria is the state of the war in some ways dependent on which neighboring country they're near when they're fighting? whether it's getting supplies in or who the combatants are? >> of course. you have -- the united states has close relationships with count these are -- regard that this as critical to their future the beyond what the future holds for you are the ski syria and jordan are working closely with the united states and the c.i.a. on these programs to try to support these moderate groups. >> suarez: andrew, the turkish parliament has decided to send its self-granted ability to intervene in syria. ask s that a significant development. >> it's hard to say. on the one hand yes it would seem to give legal authority to the turkish armed forces to intervene as they would see fit but the problem is really part of what effort? there suspect any kind of organized effort coming from the united states targeting the assad regime in order to get assad to step aside. as long as that happens, turkey and neighboring countries will be rell sent to get involved militarily. >> suarez: but a nato force on the ground changes the calculus, doesn't it? >> i think it does. if the turks completely intervened that would be one thing but short of a massive plan to get assad to step aside that would be less and less likely. >> andrew tabler, greg miller, yes merngs thank you both. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, national book award winner alice >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: a violent incident erupted in downtown washington, when a woman with a one-year-old child tried to drive her car into a barricade near the white house. that sparked a high-speed chase to the u.s. capitol. this evening, d.c. police cheif cathy lanier said secret service officers and later, capitol police fired on the car at different points. >> as of right now we do know there were shots fired in at least two locations during this pursuit. the pursuit was from 15th and "e" down to 100 block of maryland avenue. so the pursuit went several blocks, involved both united states secret service and united states capitol police. right now the suspect in the vehicle we do know was struck by gunfire at this point has been pronounced. so the suspect has been pronounced at this point. the child is approximately a year old and is in good condition and in protective custody. >> ifill: police gave out no other details about the woman. also today, day three of the federal government shutdown yields no sign of progress toward a resolution. and at least 114 african migrants died when a crowded boat sank near a tiny italian island. online, better to make decisions about your financial future while your mind is still sharp. that's the advice from one of our regular business guest contributors on the "making sense" page. you can find that and more at newshour dot pbs.org. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday we'll have the latest on the congressional standoff over the budget. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm again ifill. see you tomorrow evening with david brooks and e.j. di on. for all of us at the pbs newshour. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org