I'm not exactly which one of these steps resolved the issue as i did not pause between each one but one of them resolved it. FYI i was convinced that because those two lines worked just fine in .vbs script that it had to be something btw IIS and permissions to registry/files/folders related to the DLL involved.
Step 1. Searched the registry for the Object name. In this case "Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.6.0"
Step 2. For all registry entries i took ownership of the parent registry folders so i could give read access to IIS user account(s).
Step 3. Using the physical file paths for the the DLL found when executing step #1. I went and made sure the files/folders had read/execute permission for the IIS user account(s).
Step 4. Registered the DLL at the command line for good measure.
Step 5. Rebooted because restarting IIS didn't seem to do it.
* After reboot problem resolved and i was able to continue to add code and use the object effectively*