The reductions. Kentucky republican hal rogers chairs the appropriations committee. This bill takes the risk of a Government Shutdown off the table, funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year, while helping maintain our National Security and providing our troops and veterans with consistent, adequate funding. Ifill texas Republican House democrats said the cuts should be stripped from the bill. Virginia lawmaker Gerry Connolly we have to get our arms around spending but not in a mindless, meat axe way. It is going to hurt america. And to bake it into this continuing resolution, in my view, is a terrible mistake. Ifill the bill now goes to the senate, where majority leader harry reid said democrats hope to build in even more exceptions to the automatically mandated cuts. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said once that happens, the commitment of republicans to averting a shutdown would be put to the test. The senates not going to accept this bill. And when they dont, theyll send back another bill, and well just see how many votes there are on the republican side to keep government open, because we have absolutely no intention of having government shut down. Ifill Oklahoma Republican tom cole conceded that todays action is just the first step toward resolving the recurring budget and spending debate. We can have, i think, a good negotiation, going back and forth between the two parties. This is the beginning of a process. Its the beginning of a return to regular order. And its an opportunity to work, i think, in a bipartisan fashion. Ifill with an eye on the inclement weather outside, House Republicans also moved up todays vote by 24 hours. Also if the weather holds, president obama was scheduled to dine tonight with a group of republican senators, in part in response to complaints that he has failed to reach across the aisle. And mr. Obama announced plans to visit capitol hill next week for meetings with house and senate republicans. Woodruff still to come on the newshour too much money for too few results in iraq; National Mourning in venezuela after the death of hugo chavez; the vatican out of touch with american catholics. Plus, a made for the stage drama at the bolshoi ballet. But first, the other news of the day. Heres hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan a powerful late winter storm that tracked all the way from montana to the east coast deposited a snowy, icy mess on the midatlantic today. In washington, federal offices closed ahead of the storm, but the city and its immediate surroundings mostly got rain. Farther out in virginia, pennsylvania and maryland, as much as a foot of snow accumulated in some places. The snow that did fall was heavy and wet, snapping tree limbs and power lines and leaving up to 200,000 people without power. The state of arkansas will now have the most restrictive abortion law in the country. Republicans dominating the legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto today. The new law includes a nearban on abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy. Its slated to take effect this summer, but a Court Challenge is certain. A small group of u. S. Senators today filibustered the nomination of john brennan to be director of the c. I. A. They focused on whether the government would ever use drone aircraft to attack americans, inside the u. S. Kentucky republican rand paul cited a letter from attorney general eric holder. It said drone strikes on u. S. Soil might be considered in an extraordinary circumstance, such as 9 11. Paul said hes alarmed. You cant take away someones life and liberty without due process or an indictment. So it should trouble every american. I cant imagine that there wouldnt be an american in our country that would not be troubled that were talking about killing non combatants in american with drone strikes. Several other republicans joined the filibuster, as did oregon democrat ron wyden. He supports the brennan nomination, but he cited Civil Liberties concerns over the drone issue. Meanwhile, attorney general holder told a Senate Hearing that the administration will work to allay any fears. I have heard you the president has heard you and others who have raised this concern on both sides of the aisle. So i think there is going to be a greater effort at the transparency. A number of steps are going to be taken. I expect you will hear the president speaking about this. Later, senator paul insisted the filibuster will go on, until he gets a letter from president obama, promising not to use drones on american soil. In afghanistan, President Hamid karzai warned Afghan Forces today to put an end to incidents of torture and other abuse. An Afghan Government investigation has found widespread mistreatment at governmentrun prisons. An earlier, u. N. Investigation had reached similar conclusions. Karzai addressed the problem in a speech to the Afghan Parliament today. translated the investigation showed that during the arrests by the Foreign Forces and their local partners, who are our forces, people have been abused. This is a serious order from the president , that this should be stopped and cameras should be set up during interrogations to stop the abuse. Until now, karzai had placed the blame for prison abuse solely on nato troops. The exodus of refugees from syria has now topped one million. The u. N. Refugee agency reported the figure today. It also said 700,000 more syrians have not yet registered. Meanwhile, britain moved to give more help to the Syrian Rebels, while heavy fighting continued in northern syria. We have a report narrated by Jonathan Miller of independent television news. Reporter on the banks of the euphrates river, a two day battles been hardwon today by syrias rebel fighters the city of raqa now the first syrian provincial capital out of regime control. It was pretty intense. This afternoon, the regime hit back. Airstrikes targeting what the rebels had renamed freedom square. Freedom has come at a high price in raqqa, it seems. Today, in the house of commons, britains foreign secretary announced what some say is a landmark shift in policy; the uk, he said would provide millions of pounds of nonlethal military equipment to syrias rebels. The government concedes there are no easy answers, but mr. Hague said that faced with what he called increasingly extreme humanitarian suffering and diplomatic deadlock, britain could not look the other way. The syrian exodus has gathered pace so dramatically that the onemillion milestones been reached four months before the Un Refugee Agency predicted it would. Its taken just three months for the numbers to double. More than half are children and only a dribble of the money the world pledged a month ago has been forthcoming. This is how fast the zaatari refugee camp has expanded in jordans northern desert 2,500 tents last september. 18,000 last month. 1 million refugees, but accelerating in a dramatic way, 3,000 a day in december, 5,000 a day in january, 8,000 a day in february reporter what the British Government effectively said today was that helping the rebels was the best bet for stopping the conflict and the refugee exodus. But two years into this civil war and what syrias rebels want is lethal assistance, arguing that failing to actually arm them is prolonging the conflict. A small group of Syrian Rebels, one of more than a thousand such groups that have sprung up just since last year, are tonight holding hostage 20 u. N. Peacekeepers all filipinos. They seized them on the golan heights. They wont release them, they say, until the u. N. And the u. S. , press Syrian Regime forces to withdraw from a nearby town. Sreenivasan the u. N. Security council demanded the peacekeepers be freed immediately, and without conditions. The Russian Ambassador to the u. N. Presiding over the council this month called the incident bizarre. He said the peacekeepers are unarmed, and their mission has nothing to do with the civil war in syria. The government of egypt confronted new uncertainty today when a court suspended upcoming parliamentary elections. They had been scheduled to begin in april. The court ruled that the islamistdominated parliament rushed through the law setting up the elections. It said the countrys Supreme Constitutional Court needs time to review the statute. Advisers to president Mohammed Morsi said they plan to appeal the decision. The European Union has fined microsoft more than 700 million for failing to provide a choice of internet browsers. The Software Giant had pledged in 2009 to make those options available to users of its windows operating system. Instead, microsoft failed to comply in at least 15 million installations of windows seven in europe between may 2011 and july 2012. The company blamed a technical error and agreed to pay the fine. On wall street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained 42 points to close at 14,296 reaching a record high for a second straight day. The nasdaq fell a point to close at 3,222. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to judy. Woodruff we turn to iraq and a new report critical of u. S. Reconstruction efforts in the country. It was september, 2004. President bush appeared in the rose garden 18 months after hed ordered the invasion of iraq. The insurgency was raging, but he had an optimistic view of the american effort beyond the fighting. Electricity has been restored above prewar levels. Telephone service has increased dramatically. More than 2,000 schools have been renovated and millions of new textbooks have been distributed. There is much more work to be done. Woodruff now, a decade after the war began, iraqi and u. S. Officials portray much of the work as failures, wasted opportunities, miscalculated and mistakes. Its all in a final report by the special Inspector General for iraq reconstruction stuart bowen. He offers a damning appraisal of a project wellintentioned, but hugely wasteful in money and lives. To date, rebuilding iraq has cost more than 60 billion in u. S. Funds and more than 700 people have died supporting reconstruction apart from tens of thousands of iraqis and 4,400 americans killed in the war itself. Prime minister Nouri Almaliki told bowen that the overall benefit to iraq was small when compared with the size of the sums spent. And u. S. Senator Susan Collins of maine said, the level of fraud, waste and abuse in iraq was appalling. She recalled she was angered to learn that reconstruction money found its way into the hands of insurgent groups. Bowen also concluded that 8 billion of a separate fund of nearly 24 billion in iraqi money was wasted. It came from iraqi oil and gas revenues and seized assets, and was flown to baghdad by the u. S. In the form of cash. California congressman henry waxman was incredulous at that revelation, in 2007. The cash weighed more than 363 tons and was loaded onto c 130 cargo planes to be flown into baghdad. The numbers are so large that it doesnt seem possible that theyre true. Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone . Woodruff according to bowen, the list of poorlyconceived, overbudget and badlymanaged projects is long, including a 100 million Wastewater Treatment plant in fallujah that serves only 9,000 homes, and is eight years behind schedule. And the basra Childrens Hospital, in iraqs south 200 over budget, four years behind schedule and still incomplete. Im joined now by the author of the report, the special Inspector General for iraq reconstruction, stuart bowen. We thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me, judy. Woodruff so you were appointed to this position nine years ago. It was during the bush administration, the very beginning of all this. What was your mission . What did they what were you originally told you were supposed to do . To audit and inspect the programs and projects of Coalition Provisional authority and to provide advice and recommendations to the congress on iraqs reconstruction. Woodruff did you have any idea then of the magnitude of what you were going to be doing . Well are the first sign of it was my first trip to iraq in february of 2004 when i was walking the halls of the Republican Palace behind two people and one turned to the other and said, we cant do that anymore. Theres a new Inspector General here. That sent me a signal that the challenges before me were quite substantial. Woodruff as we said, 60 billion, and you write its the largest relief and reconstruction effort for one country in u. S. History. What happened to the money . Well, it was spent, about half of it, on security, on training the iraqi police and the army. And why . Because the security situation deteriorated gravely in 2004 and 2005 into a virtual civil war in 2006 and 2007 that required the surge, a multilevel strategy to push back that violence, which eventually it did. The other half was spent on Capacity Building. Major reconstruction projects. And i say in our report learning from iraq, at least 8 billion was wasted . Rood and you do single out security. Yes. Woodruff so was that that was essential to the ability of the reconstruction effort to be complete. Thats right. When ambassador negroponte arrived in the middle of 2004 and reviewed the Coalition Provisional authority spend plan he realized not enough was being spent on security, andry ordered the reprogramming of over 3 billion into security, but then the Iraqi Security forces fund was created by the congress, and it spent 20 billion over the next seven years. P, beginning under general petraeus leadership, and it did so, i think, to good effect. Iraqs security of forces today are better equipped and better trained than theyve ever been. Woodruff so youre saying something good did come out of it. Yes, the iraqis i interviewed said things like, fly over baghdad i cant point at a construction, piece of construction that the United States built. A lot of that money was spent on building capacity, providing equipment, and it is truep that a lot of our infrastructure efforts fell well short of what was expected because of the failure to consult. But a lot of our money paid off in the Capacity Building side of the security sector. Woodruff failure to. What does that mean . In this report i interviewed all the iraqi leadership, present and past, and they said almost to a person their chief complaint was the United States did not consult with them about what iraq really needed and instead pursued a program that it desired. Deputy secretary of state bill burned said this to me in my interview with him that we tried to do it all and do it our open way. And i think thats at a core lesson from iraq, that you have to, as general petraeus said, understand the culture. Understand the politics. Understand the economy. Woodruff excuse me, so, for example the Childrens Hospital we mentioned in basra, the waste water Treatment Plant in fallujah. Are you saying the iraqis wouldnt have wanted those things built . Actually, they didntment the water Treatment Plant as we were initially pursuing it, but the challenge there was building it in the middle of a war zone. That was the problem. In basra, yes, i think that they needed a help Significant Health care center, but it was chosen in a very difficult part of the city. And thats what caused so many dlaidz. Woodruff what about abuse . We heard the quote from senator solshe said the level of waste, fraud, and abuse was she said appalling. In terms of fraud. You talked about the waste. What about the level of fraud . Weve achieved 82 convictions of u. S. Contractors and government personnel who committed crimes in iraq and recovered over 191 million from those cases. We have 60plus ongoing cases which we will continue to pursue through the balance of this fiscal year, and i expect its least 20 more convictions in the recovery, at least 100 million. Woodruff was that is that par for the course when that much money is being spent or was there something particular to iraq . There was something particular to iraq, judy. The lack of controls at the outset created what one person called a free fraud zone in iraq. And the bloomstein conspiracy we broke in hillah, babylon, in 2004, convicted a three lieutenant kernels. Phillip boom, the contractor, had three previous convictions woodruff these are americans. Yes, this was a man who had control over hundred of millions of dollars, and he told me when we interviewed him a few years ago that, hey, if there had been a powerful, robust oversight presence on the ground, that the crimes that they engaged in wouldnt have happened. Woodruff stuart bowen you were observing all this from the very beginning. Did you see as you went along the mistakes that were being made . Yes, i did, and we reported on them. And this the Lesson Learned report we produced. I didnt want to just run a Police Blotter of convictions or a long list of auditor findings. I wanted to take what we were learning, what we saw along the way and turn them into recommendations to the congress and agencies, the state department, the department of defen