11.   Their journey was marked by detailed research, constant script revisions and vain efforts to snare actors like Gene Hackman to play Johnson and Ed Harris to play McNamara.

12.   When Defense Secretary William Cohen visited in February in a vain effort to win support for possible military action against Iraq, Crown Prince Abdullah simply made himself unavailable.

13.   When the agents arrived, she said, she even tried to run to the house, in a vain effort to stop them.

14.   For five years, the supreme patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism has been marching for peace in a vain effort to save thousands of young men from marching to war.

15.   Meanwhile, workers wearing masks to keep away the stench of rotting corpses stacked blocks of ice near the bodies in a vain effort to stave off decomposition.

16.   This represented a change of course from earlier this year, when the administration tried to intervene in a vain effort to keep the dollar from falling lower.

17.   When the boom was punctured they had to be raised excessively in a vain effort to stop an outflow.

18.   A specially equipped helicopter was also called in and dropped water from the river on flaming buildings in a vain effort to stem the orange tide.

19.   A specially equipped helicopter was also called in and dropped water from the river on flaming buildings in a vain effort to stem the polluted tide.

20.   They finished the game in shame, having resorted to a series of professional fouls in a vain effort to disrupt the underdogs.