BP has agreed at the request of the Obama administration to show video of the "top kill" designed to choke off the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The company plans to try to execute the tricky procedure as early as dawn Wednesday. It's the latest attempt to plug the devastating oil leak. 
 
 The "top kill" involves force-feeding heavy drilling mud and cement onto the leak. 
 
 BP started showing live feed of the leak itself after pressure from the Obama administration. Lawmakers had said they had learned that the "top kill" procedure would not be shown. 
 
 The company said in a statement Tuesday that it will display the video. The decision came after discussions with the federal official overseeing the spill response, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, BP said. 
 
 "Throughout the extended top kill procedure _ which may take up to two days to complete _ very significant changes in the appearance of the flows at the seabed may be expected," BP said. "These will not provide a reliable indicator of the overall progress, or success or failure, of the top kill operation as a whole. BP will report on the progress of the operation as appropriate and on its outcome when complete." ||||| BP started pumping heavy mud into the leaking Gulf of Mexico well Wednesday and said everything was going as planned in the company's boldest attempt yet to plug the gusher that has spewed millions of gallons of oil over the last five weeks. 
 
 Oil absorbent material boom and oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is seen on Elmer's Island in Grand Isle, La. on Tuesday, May 25, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Associated Press) 
 
 Douglas Inkley, left, from the National Wildlife Federation, stands near oil-soaked vegetation on an island impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Barataria Bay just inside the coast... (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama, escorted by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer, waves as he arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 25, 2010, to meet with Senate Republicans behind closed doors... (Associated Press) 
 
 An attendee at the memorial service honoring the eleven men who died in the offshore rig explosion that triggered the Gulf oil spill holds programs and commemorative ribbons as she leave the service,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Senate Energy and natural Resources Committee Chairman Sen. Jeff Bingham, D-N.M., left, and the committee's ranking Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, listen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Graphic shows percentage of U.S. oil production from offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Associated Press) 
 
 Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, center, speaks at a press conference in Galliano, La., Monday, May 24, 2010. Standing behind Salazar are Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The... (Associated Press) 
 
 An image from a live video feed the oil plume is seen on the BP.com website early Wednesday, May 26, 2010. The oil company planned a "top kill" designed to choke off the gusher of oil at the bottom of... (Associated Press) 
 
 A woman who asked not to be identified holds ribbons with eleven stars that were given attendees to the memorial service honoring the eleven men who died in the offshore rig explosion that triggered the... (Associated Press) 
 
 BP hoped the mud could overpower the steady stream of oil, but chief executive Tony Hayward said it would be at least 24 hours before officials know whether the attempt has been successful. The company wants to eventually inject cement into the well to permanently seal it. 
 
 "I'm sure many of you have been watching the plume," Hayward said from Houston. "All I can say is it is unlikely to give us any real indication of what is going on. Either increases or decreases are not an indicator of either success or failure at this time." 
 
 The stakes are high. Fisherman, hotel and restaurant owners, politicians and residents along the coast are fed up with BP's so far ineffective attempts to stop the oil leak that sprang after an offshore drilling rig exploded April 20. Eleven workers were killed, and by the most conservative estimate, 7 million gallons of crude have spilled into the Gulf, fouling Louisiana's marshes and coating birds and other wildlife. 
 
 The top kill has worked above ground but has never before been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. Company officials peg its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent. 
 
 President Barack Obama said "there's no guarantees" it will work. The president planned a trip to Louisiana on Friday. 
 
 "We're going to bring every resource necessary to put a stop to this thing," he said. 
 
 Meanwhile, dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster. 
 
 In a handwritten statement to the Coast Guard obtained by the AP, Transocean rig worker Truitt Crawford said: "I overheard upper management talking saying that BP was taking shortcuts by displacing the well with saltwater instead of mud without sealing the well with cement plugs, this is why it blew out." 
 
 At a Coast Guard hearing in New Orleans, Doug Brown, chief rig mechanic aboard the platform, testified that the trouble began at a meeting hours before the blowout, with a "skirmish" between a BP official and rig workers who did not want to replace heavy drilling fluid in the well with saltwater. 
 
 The switch presumably would have allowed the company to remove the fluid and use it for another project, but the seawater would have provided less weight to counteract the surging pressure from the ocean depths. 
 
 Brown said the BP official, whom he identified only as the "company man," overruled the drillers, declaring, "This is how it's going to be." Brown said the top Transocean official on the rig grumbled, "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for," which he took to be a reference to devices on the blowout preventer, the five-story piece of equipment that can slam a well shut in an emergency. 
 
 A live video stream Wednesday showed pictures of the blowout preventer, as well as the oil gushing out. At other times, the feed showed mud spewing out, but BP said this was not cause for alarm. 
 
 A weak spot in the blowout preventer could blow under the pressure, causing a brand new leak. 
 
 Gene Beck, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M in College Station, said the endeavor would likely fail quickly if the mud could not overcome the pressure of the oil. 
 
 "The longer it goes, maybe the better news that is," Beck said. 
 
 Frustration with BP and the federal government has only grown since then as efforts to stop the leak have failed. 
 
 Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, both outspoken critics, led a boat tour around the oil-fouled delta near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Through the Mississippi's South Pass, there were miles-long passages that showed no indication of the oil, and the air smelled fresh and salty. Nearby fish were leaping and tiny seabirds dove into the water. 
 
 But not far away at Pass a Loutre, the odor wafting above the oily water was that of an auto shop. 
 
 "We have yet to see a plan from the Coast Guard, a plan from BP, a plan to keep it from coming in, a plan to pick it up," Nungesser said of the oil. 
 
 "There's no wildlife in Pass a Loutre. It's all dead," Nungesser said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Mike Kunzelman and Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Jeff Donn in Boston, Julie Pace in Fremont, Calif., Ben Nuckols in Covington contributed to this story. 
 
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 Online: 
 
 http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam ||||| The "top kill" is underway, success uncertain. BP engineers are pumping mud at a furious rate into the damaged blowout preventer that sits on the uncapped well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The hazardous-but-high-reward maneuver comes five weeks into the oil spill crisis amid an intensifying atmosphere of political recrimination that has spread from the Gulf Coast to the White House and Congress. 
 
 The early bulletins on the top kill were encouraging. "The operation is proceeding as we planned it," BP chief executive Tony Hayward said Wednesday evening, adding that it would be 24 hours before BP knows if the well is dead. 
 
 The billowing plumes of effluent from cracks in the top of the riser pipe no longer look like oil and gas but have a distinctly muddy appearance. "What you've been observing out of the top of that riser is most likely mud. We can't fully confirm that because we can't sample it," BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said at a news conference Wednesday night. Speaking cautiously, he noted that if all goes as hoped, the well could be cemented shut by Thursday night. 
 
 President Obama, in a news conference Thursday, will outline tougher rules and regulations of the oil drilling industry and suspend exploratory drilling in the Arctic until at least next year, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made. This will delay a controversial drilling effort by Shell this summer in the seas off northern Alaska. The moves come after a 30-day review of oil drilling that Obama ordered when the crisis began. 
 
 BP officials, having studied pressure readings, finally pulled the trigger on the top kill at 2 p.m. The world could follow the top kill via live video feeds from robots on the seafloor. It was strikingly similar to watching an Apollo moon landing: grainy images of unfamiliar technology in an alien landscape. 
 
 The procedure pumps heavy drilling mud from a ship on the surface down to the seafloor and into the five-story blowout preventer atop the well. If all goes as planned, the mud will slide about 2 1/2 miles down to the bottom of the well bore, rendering the well "static." Engineers would follow up with cement plugs to seal the well permanently. 
 
 Much could go wrong. The pressure of the injected mud could damage the blowout preventer and exacerbate the leaks. The mud will go wherever it can, and not necessarily where the engineers would prefer. 
 
 "There's a hole, but it's kind of like pushing toothpaste through an obstacle course," said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University. 
 
 "I feel for the guys who are doing it, the people whose hands are actually on the throttles there," said energy analyst Byron King. "It's like doing brain surgery using robots under a mile of water with equipment that's got 30,000 horsepower of energy inside of it." 
 
 Millions of gallons of oil, and possibly tens of millions, have leaked into the gulf since the April 20 explosion and fire that killed 11 crew members on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which sank two days later. 
 
 Oil has touched 84 miles of Louisiana's ragged shoreline and envelops the crow's foot of the Mississippi River delta. The oil trajectory forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that some of the oil has been captured by the gulf's Loop Current and by noon Friday could spread approximately as far south as, but considerably to the west of, Key West, Fla. 
 
 Traveling in Fremont, Calif., Obama said Wednesday that the passage of energy legislation has become more urgent because of the oil spill, which he called "just heartbreaking." Speaking to an audience of employees at a solar-panel manufacturing plant, Obama said the spill underscores the need to shift from fossil fuels to solar, wind and other types of power. He noted the great depth at which the Deepwater Horizon rig had drilled the now-leaking well.
– BP has bowed to pressure from an increasingly ticked-off White House and reversed an earlier decision to cut off a live video feed as it attempts a top kill maneuver to plug the Gulf oil leak. The company—slammed by lawmakers yesterday after executives said the feed would be cut off during the attempt—warns that changes in the appearance of oil flow during the procedure may be misleading, the AP reports. The attempt to plug the leak with mud and cement was set to begin at dawn today and last up to two days. President Obama—who snapped "Plug the damn hole" at aides in a recent meeting, according to the Washington Post— has been receiving frequent updates on BP's progress. Top government scientists will be in the room with BP to supervise the attempt and consider alternatives if it fails.