ActionScript 3.0 :: Assign Colors To Each Country In Longhand?

I am creating a shaded map and really don't want to assign colors to each country in longhand. I created a function to color my MCs.

function colorMe(obj:Object, clr:uint):void
{
var colorTransform:ColorTransform = obj.transform.colorTransform;
colorTransform.color = clr;

[code].....

I store the needed color in the XML as something like <clr>0XE5ACEA<clr>.Shouldn't this work:

var b:Number = 0;
function loadXML(e:Event):void
{
var xml = new XML(e.target.data);

[code].....

Instead, I get this error: TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert XMLList@2ac36821 to flash.geom.ColorTransform.