Monday, March 11, 2013

'Oz' prequel creates box-office magic

By The Hollywood Reporter

Breathing life into the beleaguered box office,?Sam?Raimi's?3D?fantasy-adventure "Oz the Great and Powerful"?took in an impressive $80.3 million in its North American debut and $69.9 million overseas for a global opening of $150.2 million.

Disney and producer?Joe Roth?hope to launch a family friendly franchise with "Oz," which scored the top North American debut of 2013, as well as the third-best March opening of all time after last year's "The Hunger Games"?($152.5 million) and fellow Disney fantasy-adventure "Alice in Wonderland," which debuted to $116.1 million in early March 2010.

PHOTOS: 'Oz the Great and Powerful': How Sam Raimi Brought the Legend Back to Life

The "Wizard of Oz"?prequel tells the story of how a fast-talking Kansas circus worker (James Franco) became the Wizard of Oz. The three witches central to the story are played by?Mila?Kunis,?Rachel?Weisz?and?Michelle Williams.

Disney spent north of $300 million on "Oz," between the $215 million production budget and a hefty worldwide marketing campaign. It is opening in the same corridor as?Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," starring?Johnny Depp. "Alice" received an A-?CinemaScore?from moviegoers, versus a B+ for "Oz."

"Oz" did solid, but not spectacular, business internationally, where the original 1939 film isn't as well known. Russia led with $15 million, followed by the U.K. ($5.7 million), Mexico ($5.1 million) and Australia ($5 million).?Oz?opened to $4.2 million in Germany, where it was in a close battle with holdover "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters."

"Oz"?opened in a total of 46 territories, or roughly 80 percent of the international marketplace.

In North America, "Oz"?saw a hefty 35 percent as families turned out in force, making up 41 percent of the audience. Couples made up 43 percent, while teenagers made up 16 percent. The movie skewed slightly female (52 percent).

"The families absolutely came out, but we also did great business during the evening," said Disney distribution chief Dave Hollis."After six weekends of decline at the box office, 'Oz'?has become a water-cooler movie and gets people back in the mood to see movies."

Roughly 53 percent of the domestic gross came from 3D theaters, a pleasing number considering the overall decline in 3D attendance. IMAX theaters contributed 10 percent of the 3D total, or $8.2 million. Overseas, IMAX grosses came in at $4 million, setting a March record.

?As expected, "Oz"?made life impossible for?Bryan Singer's?3D?fantasy-adventure "Jack and the Giant Slayer," which fell 63 percent in its second weekend to $10 million for a domestic total of $43.8 million. The tentpole, from New Line and Legendary Pictures, came in No. 2 domestically.

STORY: 'Oz's' Journey: 3 Studio Chiefs, Multi-Ethnic Munchkins, James Franco Scores $7 Million

The weekend's other new wide release, romantic thriller "Dead Man Down," fell flat in its opening, coming in No. 4 with roughly $5.5 million. Marking the English-language debut of?Niels?Arden Oplev, "Dead Man Down"?reteams?the filmmaker with his "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"?star?Noomi Rapace.

Colin Farrell,?Terrence Howard?and?Dominic Cooper?also star in the movie, which is being distributed domestically by?FilmDistrict. IM Global, Original Films and Frequency Films are partners on the film.

Below are estimates for the March 8-10 weekend at the domestic box office.

Title, weeks in release/theater count, studio, three-day weekend total,?cume?(*denotes Oscar best picture nominee)

1. "Oz the Great and Powerful," 1/3,912, Disney,?$80.3 million

2. "Jack the Giant Slayer," 2/3,525, Warner Bros.,?$10 million, $43.8 million

3. "Identity Thief," 5/3,002, Universal,?$6.3 million, $116.5 million

4. "Dead Man Down," 1/2,188, FilmDistrict/IM Global,?$5.4 million

5. "Snitch," 3/2,340,?Lionsgate/Participant,?$5.1 million, $26.8 million

6. "21 and Over," 2/2,771, Relativity Media,?$5.1 million, $16.8 million

7. "Safe Haven," 4/2,541, Relativity,?$3.8 million, $62.9 million

8.?*"Silver Linings Playbook," 17/1,727, The Weinstein Co.,?$3.7 million, $120.7 million

9. "Escape From Planet Earth," 4/2,549, The Weinstein Co,?$3.2 million, $47.8 million

10. "The Last Exorcism: Part II," 2/2,700, CBS Films,?$3.1 million, $12.1 million

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Source: http://entertainment.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/10/17258139-oz-the-great-and-powerful-works-box-office-magic?lite

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TiVo Mini goes on sale for $99.99 with a $5.99 monthly subscription

TiVo Mini comes to the people for $9999

Remember the adage that good things "come to those who wait?" Well, if you managed to hold your nerve and resist signing up with Suddenlink, then your patience is ready to be rewarded. The TiVo Mini is finally ready to strike out on its own two feet four rubberized corners. The DVR extender will set you back $99.99, plus a monthly charge of $5.99, or a one-off payment of $149.99 -- in a way, you kinda wish the company had just priced it at $249.99 and let us get on with it.

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Modest quake shakes wide area of S. California

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) ? A modest but widely felt earthquake rolled through a wide swath of Southern California late Monday morning but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The 9:55 a.m. quake had an estimated magnitude of 4.7, said Nick Scheckel, seismic analyst at the California Institute of Technology's seismological laboratory in Pasadena. He said a number of aftershocks were occurring.

The epicenter was about a dozen miles from the Riverside County desert community of Anza, about 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

The temblor, which occurred at a depth of eight miles, was felt sharply in the local area and caused a swaying or rolling motion in Los Angeles and San Diego as well as in Orange and San Bernardino counties.

Susie Bride, a cashier at Cahuilla Mountain Market and Cafe in Anza, said the quake seemed to last awhile but didn't do any damage to the business.

"It kind of shook and then I thought, 'God, is that an earthquake?' It kind of shook and then it rolled a little bit and then it shook again," she said.

About 25 miles north of Anza, Palms Springs police Sgt. Harvey Reed said his department received no reports of damage or injuries. There were no other immediate reports of damage in the region.

Earthquakes of such magnitude are unlikely to do much harm in regions with modern building standards.

"It's extremely unlikely that there's damage from this earthquake," said Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena.

Jones said there would be strong shaking directly on top of the epicenter but not much farther away.

"At most, there might be some places where things were thrown off shelves, but that might be the extent of the damage," she said.

The temblor was a strike-slip earthquake on the San Jacinto Fault, the most active fault in Southern California, Jones said.

"It has historically the largest number of damaging earthquakes in the 20th century," Jones said.

In the past two decades there have been five quakes of magnitude 4.7 or greater, she said, and in the 20th century there were eight quakes of magnitude 6 and above.

Rachelle Siefken was at home in the Riverside County town of Aguanga with her 4-year-old daughter and 16-month-old son when the shaking started. It was the first earthquake experience for both children, and her son was scared, she said, although the temblor did no damage to her house.

"I grabbed him up in my arms and I stood in the doorway with him," said Siefken, who teaches English online for the California Virtual Academy.

___

AP writers Tami Abdollah, Sue Manning, Greg Risling, Justin Pritchard, Robert Jablon and John Antczak contributed to this report from Los Angeles. Gillian Flaccus reported from Orange County.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-11-California%20Earthquake/id-8c54d23d60f04f2da436bf04e8b4d87f

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Friday, March 8, 2013

Sally Jewell Appears Before Senate Panel

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Sally Jewell, the chief executive of R.E.I., told senators that she believes that climate change is real but was noncommittal on other subjects.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/us/politics/sally-jewell-rei-chief-executive-appears-before-senate-panel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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South Florida Venezuelans call for Miami consulate?s reopening

A group of naturalized Venezuelan Americans launched a campaign Thursday to collect signatures asking U.S. State Department to seek the reopening of the Venezuelan consulate in Miami.

Journalist Lourdes Ubieta, one of the leaders of the initiative, said reinstatement of the consulate must be included in the dialogue between Washington and Caracas after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez.

At a press conference in Doral, Ubieta said that in January State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed the U.S. government?s interest in improving relations with Venezuela.

?What we respectfully ask is that in the negotiations with the Venezuela government, the United States include the reopening of the Venezuelan consulate in Miami in the agenda,? Ubieta said at El Arepazo 2 restaurant in Doral.

Ubieta said that on Wednesday it had been 14 months to the day since the consulate was shuttered on Ch?vez?s orders after the Obama Administration declared the Venezuelan consul in Miami, Lidia Acosta, persona non grata.

Ubieta said that in a December 2011 Univision television documentary the diplomat was accused of participating in an alleged Iranian plot to launch cyber-attacks against U.S. government institutions.

?We have no evidence or knowledge that such threat actually existed,? Ubieta said. ?But we do know that more than 300,000 Venezuelans have been left without consular services.?

The electoral coordinator of the Miami chapter of the Democratic Union Table, Beatriz Olavarr?a, said that closing affected thousands of Venezuelans who processed official paperwork at the consulate.

Olavarr?a said the closing of the consulate forced Venezuelans of the ?Miami electoral circuit,? which encompasses Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, to travel to New Orleans, almost 900 miles from Miami, to vote in Venezuelan elections.

?That was abusive,? Olavarr?a said. ?Not only has it affected electoral themes, but also elderly people who now have to pay a fee of $80 for a simple affidavit to be able to collect their pensions.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/07/3273242/south-florida-venezuelans-call.html

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Senate panel votes to approve Obama's CIA nominee

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Tuesday to approve President Barack Obama's pick to lead the CIA after winning a behind-the-scenes battle with the White House over access to a series of top-secret legal opinions that justify the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects, including American citizens.

John Brennan's installation at the spy agency has been delayed as Senate Democrats and Republicans have pressed the Obama administration to allow a review of the classified documents prepared by the Justice Department. The senators have argued they can't perform adequate oversight without reviewing the contents of the opinions, but the White House had resisted requests for full disclosure.

The intelligence committee's chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday that the committee voted 12-3 to send Brennan's nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. The panel's deliberations were held behind closed doors. Feinstein said all eight Democrats on the committee voted yes. She did not identify the Republican senators who voted against him.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee vice chairman, said he voted against Brennan because he didn't think Brennan would create the kind of "trust relationship" between Congress and the CIA. He did not specify what his concerns were, however. But Chambliss said he would not encourage other Republican senators to attempt a filibuster of the nomination.

"He'll probably be confirmed," Chambliss said.

Feinstein said the full Senate should act quickly confirm Brennan, who spent 25 years at the CIA before later becoming Obama's top counterterrorism and homeland security adviser in the White House.

Although Brennan has made it out of the committee, Republicans have threatened to hold up his nomination unless the White House supplies them with classified information, including emails among top U.S. national security officials, detailing the Obama administration's actions immediately following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed during the raid.

Feinstein said the White House has delivered the "great bulk" of the Benghazi records, and lawmakers are awaiting "a few odds and ends that need to come."

The White House released two out of a total of 11 Justice legal opinions to the intelligence committee just hours before Brennan's Feb. 7 confirmation hearing in front of the panel. Two other memos had already been released to the committee.

Feinstein attributed the White House's resistance to providing the legal opinions to a difference of opinion between lawmakers and the Obama administration over what the documents represented.

"The White House tends to look at this as advice to the president, and therefore that advice is protected," she said. But the committee viewed the opinions as the legal advice that underwrites possible actions by U.S. intelligence agencies that Congress is charged with overseeing. "So there are different views of this," Feinstein said.

Brennan so far has escaped the harsh treatment that former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the president's choice to lead the Defense Department, received from Senate Republicans, even though Brennan is one of Obama's most important national security aides and the White House official who oversees the drone program.

During President George W. Bush's administration, Brennan served as a senior CIA official when waterboarding and other forms of "enhanced interrogation" and detention practices were adopted. Brennan has publicly denounced the use of these tactics, but the cloud hasn't gone completely away.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has said Brennan's stance on waterboarding and torture is inconsistent. Although Brennan has decried these methods, he also has said they saved lives, according to McCain, who said he is awaiting an explanation from Brennan. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are also leading the charge for the Benghazi records.

Brennan vigorously defended the use of drone strikes during his confirmation hearing. He declined to say whether he believes waterboarding, which simulates drowning, amounted to torture. But he called the practice "reprehensible" and said it should never be done again. Obama ordered waterboarding banned shortly after taking office.

Drone strikes are employed only as a "last resort," Brennan told the committee. But he also said he had no qualms about going after U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a Denver native.

Brennan spent 25 years at the CIA before moving in 2003 from his job as deputy executive director of the agency to run the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. He later worked as interim director of the center's successor organization, the National Counterterrorism Center.

When Bush's second term began in 2005, Brennan left government to work for a company that provides counterterror analysis to federal agencies. After Obama took office in 2009, he returned to the federal payroll as the president's top counterterrorism adviser in the White House.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Brennan would replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with his biographer.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-panel-votes-approve-obamas-cia-nominee-203345068--politics.html

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Too much money spent in Iraq for too few results

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 file photo, a man stands in a sewage-filled street in Fallujah, Iraq, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad. Ten years and $60 billion in taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild it were worth the cost. A $108 million waste water treatment center in the city of Fallujah, a former al-Qaida stronghold in western Iraq, will have taken eight years longer to build than planned when it is completed in 2014 and will only service 9,000 homes. Iraqi officials must provide an additional $87 million to hook up most of the rest of the city, or 25,000 additional homes. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 file photo, a man stands in a sewage-filled street in Fallujah, Iraq, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad. Ten years and $60 billion in taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild it were worth the cost. A $108 million waste water treatment center in the city of Fallujah, a former al-Qaida stronghold in western Iraq, will have taken eight years longer to build than planned when it is completed in 2014 and will only service 9,000 homes. Iraqi officials must provide an additional $87 million to hook up most of the rest of the city, or 25,000 additional homes. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)

FILE - In this file photo taken on Dec. 21, 2003, Iraqi workers end their shift at a reconstruction site in downtown Baghdad, Iraq. Ten years and $60 billion in taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild it were worth the cost. (AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed, File)

In this photo taken Feb. 19, 2013, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen gestures during an interview in his office in Arlington, Va. Ten years and $60 billion in taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild it were worth the cost. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - In this June 2007 file photograph taken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and released by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Khan Bani Saad Correctional Facility, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Baghdad, is seen from the air. Ten years and $60 billion in taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild it were worth the cost. n Iraq?s eastern Diyala province, a crossroads for Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents and Kurdish squatters, the U.S. began building a 3,600-bed prison in 2004 but abandoned the project after three years to flee a surge in violence. The half-completed Khan Bani Sa?ad Correctional Facility cost American taxpayers $40 million but sits in rubble, and Iraqi Justice Ministry officials say they have no plans to ever finish or use it. (AP Photo/Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, File)

FILE - This Saturday, July 24, 2010 fil;e photo shows a guard tower and fences with barbed wire for a U.S.-funded prison in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq, northeast of Baghdad. This site is among hundreds of projects funded by U.S. taxpayers that remain abandoned or incomplete, wasting more than $5 billion, according to auditors. Ten years and $60 billion in taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild it were worth the cost. (AP Photo/Kim Gamel, File)

(AP) ? Ten years and $60 billion in American taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation were worth the cost.

In his final report to Congress, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen's conclusion was all too clear: Since the invasion a decade ago this month, the U.S. has spent too much money in Iraq for too few results.

The reconstruction effort "grew to a size much larger than was ever anticipated," Bowen told The Associated Press in a preview of his last audit of U.S. funds spent in Iraq, to be released Wednesday. "Not enough was accomplished for the size of the funds expended."

In interviews with Bowen, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the U.S. funding "could have brought great change in Iraq" but fell short too often. "There was misspending of money," said al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim whose sect makes up about 60 percent of Iraq's population.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, the country's top Sunni Muslim official, told auditors that the rebuilding efforts "had unfavorable outcomes in general."

"You think if you throw money at a problem, you can fix it," Kurdish government official Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, told auditors. "It was just not strategic thinking."

The abysmal Iraq results forecast what could happen in Afghanistan, where U.S. taxpayers have so far spent $90 billion in reconstruction projects during a 12-year military campaign that, for the most part, ends in 2014.

Sen. Bob Corker, top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday called the report's findings "appalling" but also said its lessons will be helpful for future U.S. reconstruction projects ? especially the billions of dollars yet to be spent in Afghanistan. He called for a thorough review of State Department and U.S. foreign aid programs to make sure the money is spent wisely.

"We owe this not only to the American taxpayers, but also to the men and women - civilian and uniformed - that we send into dangerous and challenging environments to secure the area and implement U.S. programs," Corker, R-Tenn., said in a statement.

Shortly after the March 2003 invasion, Congress set up a $2.4 billion fund to help ease the sting of war for Iraqis. It aimed to rebuild Iraq's water and electricity systems; provide food, health care and governance for its people; and take care of those who were forced from their homes in the fighting. Fewer than six months later, President George W. Bush asked for $20 billion more to further stabilize Iraq and help turn it into an ally that could gain economic independence and reap global investments.

To date, the U.S. has spent more than $60 billion in reconstruction grants to help Iraq get back on its feet after the country that has been broken by more than two decades of war, sanctions and dictatorship. That works out to about $15 million a day.

And yet Iraq's government is rife with corruption and infighting. Baghdad's streets are still cowed by near-daily deadly bombings. A quarter of the country's 31 million population lives in poverty, and few have reliable electricity and clean water.

Overall, including all military and diplomatic costs and other aid, the U.S. has spent at least $767 billion since the American-led invasion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. National Priorities Project, a U.S. research group that analyzes federal data, estimated the cost at $811 billion, noting that some funds are still being spent on ongoing projects.

Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate committee that oversees U.S. funding, said the Bush administration should have agreed to give the reconstruction money to Iraq as a loan in 2003 instead as an outright gift.

"It's been an extraordinarily disappointing effort and, largely, a failed program," Collins, R-Maine, said in an interview. "I believe, had the money been structured as a loan in the first place, that we would have seen a far more responsible approach to how the money was used, and lower levels of corruption in far fewer ways."

In numerous interviews with Iraqi and U.S. officials, and though multiple examples of thwarted or defrauded projects, Bowen's report laid bare a trail of waste, including:

?In Iraq's eastern Diyala province, a crossroads for Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents and Kurdish squatters, the U.S. began building a 3,600-bed prison in 2004 but abandoned the project after three years to flee a surge in violence. The half-completed Khan Bani Sa'ad Correctional Facility cost American taxpayers $40 million but sits in rubble, and Iraqi Justice Ministry officials say they have no plans to ever finish or use it.

?Subcontractors for Anham LLC, based in Vienna, Va., overcharged the U.S. government thousands of dollars for supplies, including $900 for a control switch valued at $7.05 and $80 for a piece of pipe that costs $1.41. Anham was hired to maintain and operate warehouses and supply centers near Baghdad's international airport and the Persian Gulf port at Umm Qasr.

? A $108 million wastewater treatment center in the city of Fallujah, a former al-Qaida stronghold in western Iraq, will have taken eight years longer to build than planned when it is completed in 2014 and will only service 9,000 homes. Iraqi officials must provide an additional $87 million to hook up most of the rest of the city, or 25,000 additional homes.

?After blowing up the al-Fatah bridge in north-central Iraq during the invasion and severing a crucial oil and gas pipeline, U.S. officials decided to try to rebuild the pipeline under the Tigris River at a cost of $75 million. A geological study predicted the project might fail, and it did: Eventually, the bridge and pipelines were repaired at an additional cost of $29 million.

?A widespread ring of fraud led by a former U.S. Army officer resulted in tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks and the criminal convictions of 22 people connected to government contracts for bottled water and other supplies at the Iraqi reconstruction program's headquarters at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.

In too many cases, Bowen concluded, U.S. officials did not consult with Iraqis closely or deeply enough to determine what reconstruction projects were really needed or, in some cases, wanted. As a result, Iraqis took limited interest in the work, often walking away from half-finished programs, refusing to pay their share, or failing to maintain completed projects once they were handed over.

Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shiite, described the projects as well intentioned, but poorly prepared and inadequately supervised.

The missed opportunities were not lost on at least 15 senior State and Defense department officials interviewed in the report, including ambassadors and generals, who were directly involved in rebuilding Iraq.

One key lesson learned in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told auditors, is that the U.S. cannot expect to "do it all and do it our way. We must share the burden better multilaterally and engage the host country constantly on what is truly needed."

Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, who was the top U.S. military commander in Iraq from 2008 to 2010, said "it would have been better to hold off spending large sums of money" until the country stabilized.

About a third of the $60 billion was spent to train and equip Iraqi security forces, which had to be rebuilt after the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded Saddam's army in 2003. Today, Iraqi forces have varying successes in safekeeping the public and only limited ability to secure their land, air and sea borders.

The report also cites Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as saying that the 2011 withdrawal of American troops from Iraq weakened U.S. influence in Baghdad. Panetta has since left office when former Sen. Chuck Hagel took over the defense job last week. Washington is eyeing a similar military drawdown next year in Afghanistan, where U.S. taxpayers have spent $90 billion so far on rebuilding projects.

The Afghanistan effort risks falling into the same problems that mired Iraq if oversight isn't coordinated better. In Iraq, officials were too eager to build in the middle of a civil war, and too often raced ahead without solid plans or back-up plans, the report concluded.

Most of the work was done in piecemeal fashion, as no single government agency had responsibility for all of the money spent. The State Department, for example, was supposed to oversee reconstruction strategy starting in 2004, but controlled only about 10 percent of the money at stake. The vast majority of the projects ? 75 percent ? were paid for by the Defense Department.

___

Online:

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction: http://www.sigir.mil/learningfromiraq/index.html

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-06-US-Iraq-Funding/id-09204eafd29e4065b204b28b6ef071ac

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