Clinton, prosecutors stress, is not personally involved in the trial, which began last week in Los Angeles district court, but the case is threatening to derail her preparations for a bid for the White House in three years’ time. Even if Rosen is cleared, the case is likely to provide ammunition for her conservative critics.

The problems began at a glamorous fundraising event in 2000 when Hillary Clinton was campaigning for her Senate seat in New York. Billed as a lavish and star-studded farewell by Hollywood to outgoing President Bill Clinton, the party at a Beverly Hills mansion was attended by such star names as Cher, Brad Pitt and Diana Ross.

The event’s organizer, entrepreneur Peter Paul, is believed to have spent more than $1.2 million on it. But Rosen told the commission it cost $400,000, which means that at least $800,000 could have gone illegally into Clinton’s campaign coffers. This, if it is proved true, would be a serious breach of America’s strict campaign finance laws. Rosen faces a maximum jail sentence of 15 years and up to $250,000 in fines if he is found guilty.

Even though there has been no suggestion that Clinton knew about the alleged crimes, her name has already dominated the proceedings. Potential jurors were questioned about their feelings toward the senator.

One of her friends, James Levin, told the court the charges were part of a smear campaign. “I thought, and I still think, they were politically motivated,” he said.

The case has highlighted a growing network of Republicans and other conservatives who are gearing up to attack Hillary Clinton’s nascent 2008 campaign. One of them, the veteran Arthur Finkelstein, has set up a “Stop Her Now” Web site with the objective of raising $10 million to bankroll anti-Clinton activities.

Another site, the Hillary Clinton Accountability Project, was designed by the webmasters behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that helped to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in last year’s presidential election.

Judicial Watch, a body that highlighted various scandals involving the Clinton White House, filed papers with the Senate ethics committee last week claiming that Hillary Clinton must have known that Rosen’s filings to the FEC were false.

Conservative publishing house Sentinel has announced plans to publish a tell-all book called “The Truth About Hillary” this year. The appearance of the book, being written by journalist Edward Klein, is gleefully awaited by Republicans.

Although Clinton is popular with many grass-roots Democrats, she has some party bosses feeling nervous. “She is just such an easy target,” said Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California.

The main evidence against Rosen is taped conversations he allegedly had with Ray Reggie, brother-in-law of Sen. Edward Kennedy. In transcripts leaked to a New Orleans newspaper, Rosen and Reggie talk about the fundraiser, apparently admitting its cost. The pair swap salacious asides that could also cause political damage. At one point Rosen describes how a donor to the Democratic Party sent prostitutes to the hotel rooms of two senior Clinton loyalists after a night of drinking.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that organizer Paul was convicted of trafficking cocaine in 1979 and has been convicted of trying to defraud the Cuban government in a coffee-trading scheme. Aaron Tonken, another organizer of similar events for Democrats, is now in prison for a charity fraud.

Such links provide much material for Hillary Clinton’s many critics on the right and the left to play with. It has also dealt a blow to her efforts to move her politics to the center by appearing softer on social issues such as abortion and harder on defense issues such as military spending and Iraq.

“This sort of thing just serves to remind people of the ’90s scandals like Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair,” said Bowler. “Some Democrats have short memories — but I don’t think that a lot of American voters do.”

Witnesses and analysts familiar with the region said most protesters were complaining about government corruption and poverty, not espousing Islamic extremism.

The U.S. comments were seized on by Karimov, who said Saturday that the protests were organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group often accused by Tashkent of seditious extremism. Yet Washington, which has expressed concern over the group’s often hard-line message, has yet to designate it a terrorist group.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, tried to deflect accusations of the contradictory stance when he said it was clear the “people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence.”

Washington has often been accused of being involved in a conspiracy of silence over Uzbekistan’s human rights record since that country was declared an ally in the “war on terror” in 2001. Uzbekistan is believed to be one of the destination countries for the highly secretive “renditions program,” whereby the CIA ships terrorist suspects to third-party countries where torture is used that cannot be employed in the U.S. Newspaper reports in America say dozens of suspects have been transferred to Uzbek jails.

The CIA has never officially commented on the program. But flight logs obtained by the New York Times earlier this month show CIA-linked planes landing in Tashkent with the same serial numbers as jets used to transfer prisoners around the world. The logs show at least seven flights from 2002 to late 2003 originating from destinations in the Middle East and Europe.

Other countries used in the program include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Morocco. A handful of prisoners’ accounts — including that of Canadian Maher Afar — that emerged after their release claim they were tortured and abused in custody.

Critics say the U.S. double standards are evident on the State Department Web site, which accuses Uzbek police and security services of using “torture as a routine investigation technique” while giving the same law enforcement services $79 million in aid in 2002. The department says officers who receive training are vetted to ensure they have not tortured anyone.

The aid paradox was highlighted by former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who criticized coalition support for Uzbekistan when it was planning the invasion of Iraq, using similar abuses as justification. Murray said Saturday: “The U.S. will claim that they are teaching the Uzbeks less repressive interrogation techniques, but that is basically not true. They help fund the budget of the Uzbek security services and give tens of millions of dollars in military support. It is a sweetener in the agreement over which they get their air base.”

Murray said that during a series of suicide bombings in Tashkent in March 2004, before he was sacked as U.K. ambassador, he was shown transcripts of telephone intercepts in which known al-Qaida representatives were asking each other, “‘What the hell is going on?’ But then Colin Powell came out and said that al-Qaida was behind the blasts. I don’t think the U.S. even believes their own propaganda.”

The support continues, seen by many as a payoff for the Khanabad base. The U.S. Embassy Web site says Uzbekistan got $10 million for “security and law enforcement support” in 2004.

Last year Human Rights Watch released a 319-page report detailing the use of torture by Uzbekistan’s security services. It said the government was carrying out a campaign of torture and intimidation against Muslims that had seen 7,000 people imprisoned, and documented at least 10 deaths, including that of Muzafar Avozov, who was boiled to death in 2002.

“Torture is rampant,” the reported concluded. Human Rights Watch called for the United States and its allies to condemn Uzbekistan’s tactics.

Saar paints a picture of a base where interrogations of often innocent prisoners have spiraled out of control, doing massive damage to America’s image in the Muslim world. Saar said events at Guantánamo are a disaster for U.S. foreign policy. “We are trying to promote democracy worldwide. I don’t see how you can do that and run a place like Guantánamo Bay. This is now a rallying cry to the Muslim world,” he said.

Saar arrived at Guantánamo Bay in December 2002, and worked there until June 2003. He first worked as a translator in the prisoners’ cages. He was then transferred to the interrogation teams, acting as a translator.

Saar’s book, “Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier’s Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo,” provides the first fully detailed look inside Guantánamo Bay’s role as a prison for detainees the White House has insisted are the “worst of the worst” among Islamic militants. His tale describes his gradual disillusionment, from arriving as a soldier keen to do his duty to eventually leaving believing the regime to be a breach of human rights and a disaster for the war on terror.

Among the most shocking abuses Saar recalls is the use of sex in interrogation sessions. Some female interrogators stripped down to their underwear and rubbed themselves against their prisoners. Pornographic magazines and videos were also used as rewards for confessing.

In one session a female interrogator took off some of her clothes and smeared fake blood on a prisoner after telling him she was menstruating. “That’s a big deal. It is a major insult to one of the world’s biggest religions, where we are trying to win hearts and minds,” Saar said.

Saar also describes the snatch teams, known as the Initial Reaction Force (IRF), who remove uncooperative prisoners from their cells. He describes one such snatch where a prisoner’s arm was broken. In a training session for an IRF team, one U.S. soldier posing as a prisoner was beaten so badly that he suffered brain damage. It is believed the IRF team had not been told the “detainee” was a soldier.

Staff at Guantánamo also faked interrogations for visiting senior officials. Prisoners who had already been interrogated were sat down behind one-way mirrors and asked old questions while the visiting officials watched.

Saar also describes the effects prolonged confinement had on many of the prisoners. He details bloody suicide attempts and serious mental illnesses. One detainee slashed his wrists with razors and wrote in blood on a wall: “I committed suicide because of the brutality of my oppressors.”

Saar details a meeting with an Army lawyer at which linguists, interrogators and intelligence workers at the base were told the Geneva Conventions did not apply to their work, as the detainees could not be considered normal prisoners of war. At the end of the meeting the group was told: “We still intend to treat the detainees humanely, but our purpose is to get any actionable intelligence we can, and quickly.”

But Saar said that many, if not most, of the detainees were rarely interrogated at all after their initial arrival. They just sat listlessly in their cells for months on end. He believes that many of them were either simple foot soldiers caught up in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere, or innocent men sold out to the Americans by local enemies settling a grudge or looking to collect reward money.

Saar accepts that some genuine terrorists have been held at Guantánamo. “There are individuals there who I hope will never be set free,” he said, but he contends that they are in the minority. “Overall, it is counterproductive,” he said.

Saar was an enthusiastic supporter of George W. Bush in the 2000 election, but he has changed his worldview after being exposed to Guantánamo Bay. “I believe in America and American troops,” he said, “but it has drastically changed my worldview and my politics.”

Saar left the Army and has become a hate figure for some right-wing groups, which say he and his book are unpatriotic. But Saar believes exposing the abuses of Guantánamo will lessen the damage done to America’s reputation in the long run. “The camp is a mistake. It does not need to be that way. There should be a better way, more in line with American morals,” he said.

The pictures of American soldiers abusing and torturing prisoners created a global backlash against the U.S. presence in Iraq, outraging allies and opponents alike.

Several low-ranking soldiers have been prosecuted. They blamed senior officers, saying they were just following orders, but the new probe has now cleared those officers.

The investigation was intended as the military’s conclusion on the ultimate responsibility for the scandal. It is the only U.S. inquiry so far to have had the power to apportion blame. Critics say it has made scapegoats of ordinary soldiers. “This decision unfortunately continues a pattern of exoneration and indeed promotion for many of the individuals at the heart of the torture scandal,” said Amnesty International spokesman Alistair Hodgett.

Army officials say 125 soldiers have been tried at courts-martial or been otherwise punished. The officials have always denied that the abuse was systemic or planned by the senior military hierarchy. Yet some soldiers and Karpinski have said their superiors encouraged the abusive practices and relaxed rules about harsh treatment of prisoners.

Guy Womack, a lawyer for Spec. Charles Graner, who has been sentenced to 10 years for abusing prisoners, called for action to be taken against at least two of the senior officers.

Other official investigations have taken a stronger line. One probe by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger concluded that Sanchez should have taken firmer action in November 2003, when the Army first realized the scale of the abuse. An investigation last summer found that the “action and inaction” of Sanchez and his senior officers “indirectly contributed” to what was going on at Abu Ghraib.

The report followed a week of renewed bloodshed — including the massacre of 19 men in a football stadium in Haditha and the shooting down of a civilian helicopter — that appears to have been encouraged by three months of political stalemate since January’s elections. Saturday, the U.S. military arrested six Iraqi men in connection with the downing of the helicopter.

The report also follows increasing disillusionment among foreign diplomats and Iraqi party leaders over the choice two weeks ago by the Shiite majority of Ibrahim al-Jaafari for prime minister. Iraqi and Western officials have told the Observer that they fear Jaafari lacks the leadership skills to guide Iraq at such a crucial time.

According to a report in Saturday’s New York Times, the political impasse is largely the result of leading Kurdish political figures trying to stall the formation of a new government in an effort to force out Jaafari. “The Kurds are intent on delaying the government so that Jaafari will fall,” Sami al-Askari, a member of the Shiite alliance, told the paper.

Last week British and U.S. officials blamed the increase in violence on the continuing inability of Iraq’s political parties to agree on a government — a hiatus that bodes ill for negotiations on a new constitution due later this year.

A spokesman for the Kurdish alliance denied on Friday that there was any effort to unseat Jaafari. However, Kurdish leaders have never been comfortable with religious figures such as Jaafari, the leader of a popular Shiite religious party. Under Iraq’s transitional law, Jaafari will lose his position if he does not name a cabinet by May 7. If he is displaced, Iraq’s new president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his deputies would choose a prime minister.

Quite. Lying was the theme of defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau’s attack. He played videos of Arvizo praising Jackson and he forced her to admit she had lied under oath in a previous compensation case. She said she was a “bad actress.” Mesereau shot back: “I think you’re a good one.” Later she got her own back. “Neverland is all about booze, pornography and sex with boys,” she said.

But the only real truth to emerge from Santa Maria is that the ongoing train wreck that is the Jackson trial is simply beyond belief. For weeks Jackson has sat in the courtroom watching his carefully guarded life fall apart. If Neverland, his fantasy hideaway in the Southern California hills, was meant to be a private retreat where he could shun a mocking world, it has never been more horribly exposed in all its garish weirdness.

Prosecutor Tom Sneddon has relentlessly pursued his case that Jackson is a serial pedophile. The jury has been spared no lurid detail in the quest to show that Jackson created Neverland as “bait” to procure unsuspecting children. From a former cook to an ex-housekeeper, former Neverland employees have engaged in a brutal parade of testimony about Jackson’s alleged abuse at the secluded ranch. Added to that have been the alleged victims themselves and their relatives. The picture they have built up is a consistent one. It shows Jackson targeting boys, often with absent fathers and mothers susceptible to flattery and lavish gifts. He would then pressure them into his Neverland bedroom and sexually molest them. One was even paid cash and told not to tell his mother.

And with row upon row of TV cameras camped outside like an occupying army, it is all taking place in the glare of the world’s media. No wonder Jackson’s lawyers are feeling the strain. Recently one of his team, Brian Oxman, was recorded by a TV crew’s microphone making a furious phone call in the car park of his Santa Maria hotel. Oxman yelled as he furiously debated the possibility of someone being fired from Jackson’s team. “This is going to get intolerable!” he barked.

But the picture of a doomed Jackson is far from true. The prosecution has now fired most of its big guns, and Jackson is still standing. The defense phase of the case has yet to begin and will probably last until the end of June at least. Already there are hints that the prosecution’s best days could be behind it.

The defense will rely on two main tracks. First, that Jackson’s accusers are after his money. Second, that all the witnesses so far are disgruntled former employees who have sold their stories to the tabloids. There is ample evidence for both.

For in the Jackson trial, there are few innocents. The prosecutor is unrelenting. The defense is unbending. Choosing who is the accuser and who is the victim depends on what you believe. Each witness has a horrific story. Yet, rather than calling the police, each appears to have sold that story to a supermarket tabloid, cashing in on the true American currency: 15 minutes of fame.

Arvizo a pink dress for her first day in court last week. She theatrically recalled sitting on a plane and watching Jackson lick her child’s forehead like a cat. “Like this, over and over,” she told the court as she demonstrated by licking her own arm. That awful animalistic image, of the king of pop licking the head of a young boy, was just one of many direct hits on Jackson in the past two weeks. There had already been two other mothers with devastating testimonies. June Chandler, whose son Jordie was the subject of a $20 million out-of-court settlement in 1993, has also taken the stand. As has an El Salvador-born cleaning woman, who testified that she saw Jackson take a shower with a young boy and added that her own son had also been abused.

All three mothers described a similar pattern. It is, prosecutors argue, classic evidence of a predatory pedophile. They claim that Jackson uses Neverland, with its array of free amusement rides, endless supply of sweets and his own private bedroom as a honeypot into which to lure his victims. They are young boys whose fathers are usually absent. The mothers are then showered with gifts and pressured to allow their children to share Jackson’s bedroom. Eventually the boys are abused. “There’s a pattern here,” said Steve Cron, a legal analyst and California defense attorney.

Chandler gave classic testimony. She was in the middle of divorcing her second husband when Jackson befriended her son Jordie. Gifts were commonplace, and eventually Jackson became angry that she would not let Jordie share his bedroom. In court testimony, she described a trip to Las Vegas in 1993 where things came to a head. Jackson “was sobbing, crying, shaking and trembling,” Chandler said, describing how Jackson told her: “We’re a family. Why don’t you allow Jordie to be with me … Jordie is having fun. Why can’t he sleep in my bed? There’s nothing going on. Why don’t you trust me?” Astonishingly, she gave in. In return, she was given a gold Cartier bracelet.

It seems almost to have been a conveyor belt of abuse in the faux wonderland of Jackson’s home. Certainly that is the picture the prosecution is painting. It has brought forward witnesses to describe abuse against at least three young boys aside from Jackson’s actual accuser. The alleged victimes include then child actor Macaulay Culkin, star of the “Home Alone” movies, and another boy, Wade Robson, who now works as a choreographer for Britney Spears. Much of the evidence comes from Jackson’s former Neverland staff, including his cook, Phillip Lemarque, and security guard Ralph Chacon.

In surreal testimony Lemarque said he was once summoned to make Jackson some food at 3 a.m. with the order: “The Silver Fox wants some French fries.” When he entered Jackson’s bedroom he saw him and Culkin playing an arcade game with Jackson’s hand down the young boy’s underpants. “I was shocked. I almost dropped the French fries,” Lemarque told the court. Chacon, meanwhile, said he saw Jackson performing oral sex with another boy. As he described the scene, Jackson stared at him across the courtroom and slowly shook his head.

It is damning stuff. But in this trial, resting on two specific charges of abuse against a 13-year-old cancer sufferer, the accuser’s testimony itself has been no less graphic. He described Jackson plying him with wine (which the singer dubbed “Jesus juice”), showing him pornographic magazines, simulating sex with a mannequin and then finally sexually assaulting him. To back it up the jury was shown porn taken from Jackson’s bedroom and subjected to protracted technical testimony that revealed both the boy’s and Jackson’s fingerprints were on the magazines.

But already, holes in the prosecution’s case have begun to appear. Jackson’s lead attorney, Thomas Mesereau, is a brutal cross-examiner and has not backed off from attacking the accuser.

His cause has been greatly helped by stuttering performances from all the prosecution’s key witnesses. The accuser, dubbed John Doe, gave an at times bizarre display. He yawned repeatedly, prompting Sneddon to ask him: “I’m keeping you awake, am I?” To which the boy replied: “All I need is a pillow.” John Doe was also questioned about how his initial complaints of five acts of abuse had turned into just two. His brother, known as James Doe, also gave changing testimony, describing events differently at different times.

Yet the worst performance was by the mother. At one stage, she dubbed Jackson and his entourage as “killers.” She pointed at Jackson every time she mentioned his name, frequently burst into tears, yet cracked jokes just as often. Mesereau raised few objections to disturb her flow. Even prosecutor Ron Zonen betrayed his exasperation. “Anyway ” was his sarcastic response to a long reply that failed to answer his question.

Mesereau was brutal in attacking her. On April 15 the judge struck so many remarks from the record (both hers and Mesereau’s) that he had to suspend court to explain to the jury they should forget any such comments. She was erratic and rambling. At one stage she claimed Jackson’s side had faked a receipt that showed she had had a leg, eyebrow and bikini wax at a local salon. “I’m telling you, it was only a leg wax,” she said. She then turned to look at Jackson and said accusingly: “He has the ability to choreograph everything.” “How about you?” Mesereau shot back. The remark was struck from the record.

But the witnesses who were not there were also crucial. Both Culkin and Robson have previously insisted they were never abused by Jackson. Jordie Chandler has also refused to testify. It is perhaps telling that he has not spoken to his mother, who was so willing to take the stand, in more than 11 years.

Finally there is the issue of money. It is this that is emerging as the dominant thread of the defense. The collision of celebrity and crime and checkbook journalism has undermined swaths of the prosecution’s case. “The Achilles’ heel is these low-life witnesses who sold their souls to the tabloids,” said Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School.

Jackson’s cook Lemarque, who says he saw him molest Culkin, had talks with a tabloid about selling his story for $100,000. He admitted to Mesereau that he had been told the story was worth more if Jackson’s hands were inside Culkin’s underpants, not outside. Another staff member, maid Adrian McManus, confessed that several employees had banded together to hire a “media broker” to peddle Jackson sex stories that they made up.

Chacon, the security guard, was part of a failed lawsuit to sue Jackson by ex-Neverland staff. That suit ended in disaster, and each plaintiff was forced to pay Jackson more than $1 million in legal fees. “This is a good way to get even with him, isn’t it?” Mesereau bluntly asked as Chacon squirmed. Chacon has also sold his story to the tabloids to pay the legal bills.

The Salvadoran cleaner (whose name cannot be revealed) is not free of tabloid taint either. She was paid $20,000 to appear on a TV show in a deal arranged by another Jackson maid. The accuser’s father has talked to British tabloids about selling his story, though no deal was ever struck. Behind it all is the possibility of a civil suit of the kind that won the Chandler family $20 million. Mesereau grilled John Doe on the prospect. “You’re aware that if Mr. Jackson is convicted you could automatically win a civil suit, right?” he asked him. “No,” the boy said, which prompted Mesereau to repeat: “No one’s ever discussed that with you?” Again the boy said no. “We’ve said things like, ‘Oh, we don’t want his money’ and stuff like that.” It remains to be seen if that will convince a jury.

But tellingly, the family’s civil lawyer, Will Dickerman, and attorney Larry Feldman, who first brought the boy’s charges to light, have entered into a fee-sharing arrangement, so that if any future civil suit is launched they will share the reward. When Feldman was on the stand, Mesereau made sure the jury was made aware of the situation and that the accuser will have until he is 20 years old to decide if he wants to pursue compensation. That produced a testy exchange between Mesereau and Feldman. “If at the end of this trial, they decide they’d like to sue, they’d have plenty of time, wouldn’t they?” Mesereau asked icily. “If they’d like to, sure,” was Feldman’s calm response.

It is hard to escape the notion that money could be key to the trial. At no stage did any witness or victim report Jackson to the police. Or try to stop the alleged abuse. They went to lawyers, tabloid editors and television reporters, but never to social services. “These witnesses are alleging heinous behavior and not a one of them seems to have done a damn thing about it while the acts were being committed. Who are these people?” said show business columnist Richard Roeper. Mesereau was more subtle. “Did you ever take your son and leave?” he asked Chandler. “No,” she replied.

Guilty or innocent, Jackson is almost certainly finished as a pop star. “At this point the case is looking like a smear campaign. It’s a legal free-for-all,” said Levenson. But the trial also seems to be a “high-water” mark for celebrity trials. From Scott Peterson to Robert Blake to Kobe Bryant, America has been awash with high-profile scandals over the past year. Perhaps, at long last, it is tiring of them.

The Jackson trial is rarely front-page news. Even the most salacious testimony is on inside pages. The “reenactments” shown each night on some TV channels have failed to catch the imagination. Mesereau is not a household name. It seems America has, so far, spared itself another O.J. Simpson trial. That is the only good thing to emerge from Santa Maria so far.