Ms Farsetta said the public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like," she said.

The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation but investigators from the commission's enforcement unit recently approached Ms Farsetta for a copy of her group's report.

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product. One example cited by the report was a Hallowe'en segment produced by the confectionery giant Mars, which featured Snickers, M&Ms and other company brands. While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.

Bloomberg news service said that other companies that sponsored the promotions included General Motors, the world's largest car maker, and Intel, the biggest maker of semi-conductors. All of the companies said they included full disclosure of their involvement in the VNRs. "We in no way attempt to hide that we are providing the video," said Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel. "In fact, we bend over backward to make this disclosure."

The FCC was urged to act by a lobbying campaign organised by Free Press, another non-profit group that focuses on media policy. Spokesman Craig Aaron said more than 25,000 people had written to the FCC about the VNRs. "Essentially it's corporate advertising or propaganda masquerading as news," he said. "The public obviously expects their news reports are going to be based on real reporting and real information. If they are watching an advertisement for a company or a government policy, they need to be told."

The controversy over the use of VNRs by television stations first erupted last spring. At the time the FCC issued a public notice warning broadcasters that they were obliged to inform viewers if items were sponsored. The maximum fine for each violation is $32,500 (£17,500).

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

Ms Farsetta said the public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like," she said.

The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation but investigators from the commission's enforcement unit recently approached Ms Farsetta for a copy of her group's report.

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product. One example cited by the report was a Hallowe'en segment produced by the confectionery giant Mars, which featured Snickers, M&Ms and other company brands. While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.

Bloomberg news service said that other companies that sponsored the promotions included General Motors, the world's largest car maker, and Intel, the biggest maker of semi-conductors. All of the companies said they included full disclosure of their involvement in the VNRs. "We in no way attempt to hide that we are providing the video," said Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel. "In fact, we bend over backward to make this disclosure."

The FCC was urged to act by a lobbying campaign organised by Free Press, another non-profit group that focuses on media policy. Spokesman Craig Aaron said more than 25,000 people had written to the FCC about the VNRs. "Essentially it's corporate advertising or propaganda masquerading as news," he said. "The public obviously expects their news reports are going to be based on real reporting and real information. If they are watching an advertisement for a company or a government policy, they need to be told."

The controversy over the use of VNRs by television stations first erupted last spring. At the time the FCC issued a public notice warning broadcasters that they were obliged to inform viewers if items were sponsored. The maximum fine for each violation is $32,500 (£17,500).

At his memorial service, mourners remembered the 27-year-old Tillman as an inspiration to thousands of Americans. California's first lady Maria Shriver was among those supporting the family, recalling how much Tillman gave up to fight for his country in Afghanistan.

"Pat had it all," she said. "Intelligence, movie star good looks, a loving wife, athletic prowess, fame. A lucrative and promising career. Who among us could walk away from riches and a job we love?"

Tillman did.

The former safety for the Arizona Cardinals gave up a multimillion dollar pro football deal the day after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, to enlist as an elite Army Ranger. He explained his decision in a rare interview just before he went into the Army.

"My great-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor," he said. "And a lot of my family has given up -- you know, has -- has gone and fought in wars. And -- I really haven't done a damn thing, as far as laying myself on the line like that."

But Tillman's devotion to "duty, honor, country" ended with his death in a desolate section of Afghanistan.

And it wasn't until 26 days after the memorial service -- more than a month after his death -- that the Army would publicly acknowledge what the Rangers who were with him in combat knew almost right away: Tillman died in "friendly fire." He was hit in the head by three bullets fired by U.S. soldiers who say they mistook him for the enemy.

Much -- but not all -- of the story of what went wrong that April day in 2004 can be found in thousands of Army documents obtained by CNN. And while the heavily blacked-out documents provide some answers -- they also raise substantial questions that three separate Army investigations have failed to resolve.

'Friendlies! Cease fire!'

Tillman's platoon was on a mission in eastern Afghanistan, along the Pakistan border. His platoon was trying to flush out enemy Taliban or al Qaeda fighters. The platoon's problems began with a broken-down Humvee, which had to be towed by a local truck and was slowing the platoon.

The platoon was split into two groups, on orders of a commander at a base far away, according to Army documents. The split was ordered over the objections of the platoon leader. But the base commander was concerned that the broken vehicle was delaying the mission.

Cpl. Pat Tillman was with the first group that pressed on, moving safely through a deep canyon and arriving at a small village. The second group -- with the Humvee in tow -- included Tillman's younger brother Kevin, who enlisted with Pat after September 11.

That second convoy followed a different route but found the terrain too rugged.

So they backtracked and followed the first group deep into the narrow canyon. Although they were just a half hour back, the first group was unaware the second group was coming up behind them.

In the canyon, the second group was ambushed from above by enemy fighters. To add to the confusion, in the deep canyon, the two groups lost radio contact.

But Pat Tillman's group heard the gunfire back in the canyon and turned back to help. Tillman -- as described in his Silver Star citation -- showed great courage under fire in leading a small rifle team -- including an Afghan soldier -- to the top of a ridge to engage the enemy.

Down below, a Humvee armed with a .50-caliber machine gun and four soldiers with other weapons pulled out from behind the truck and broken Humvee.

As they emerged from the canyon, the soldiers in the vehicle were firing with an abandon that one Army investigator said demonstrated gross negligence. The soldiers later said that they thought the enemy was all around them. As they fired in all directions, they began hitting U.S. troops. The platoon leader was hit in the face and another soldier shot in the leg.

From Tillman's position up on the ridge came anguished cries of alarm. First, the Afghan soldier was shot and killed by the soldiers in the Ranger vehicle. The soldier standing alongside Tillman described what he witnessed in a sworn statement.

"A GMV [vehicle] with a .50-cal rolled into our sight and started to unload on top of us," he said.

"Tillman and I were yelling 'Stop! Stop! Friendlies! Friendlies! Cease fire!' But they couldn't hear us."

According to another sworn statement obtained by CNN, the driver of the Humvee was initially confused when he saw the Afghan soldier with Tillman on the ridge -- and then realized others in his Humvee were firing on fellow Rangers.

"I yelled twice 'We have friendlies on top!'" said the driver. "The crew must have not heard me because my vehicle opened fired on them. I screamed, 'No!' and then yelled repeatedly several times to cease fire. No one heard me."
'We thought it was over'

Tillman threw a smoke grenade to signal they were Rangers, and for a few moments, it appeared to work.

"We thought the battle was over," said the soldier next to Tillman. "So we were relieved, getting up stretching out and talking with one another when I heard some 5.56 rounds coming from the vehicle. They started firing again. That's when I hit the deck and started praying."

But Tillman didn't get down in time. He was hit.

"I know this because I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out: 'Cease fire! Friendlies! I am Pat (expletive) Tillman damn it!'" the soldier said. "He said this over and over again until he stopped."

Moments later, a sound caught the attention of the soldier next to Tillman.

"I heard what sounded like water pouring down," he said. "I then looked over at my side to see a river of blood coming down from where he was. I had blood all over my shoulder from him and when I looked at him, I saw his head was gone."

Fourth investigation launched

It has been two years since Pat Tillman was shot to death by his fellow Army Rangers in Afghanistan. There remain many unanswered questions about precisely how that happened.

In part because of the family's anger and disillusionment, the Pentagon has launched a fourth investigation -- a criminal probe into whether Tillman's death was negligent homicide -- as well as a separate review of whether the Army engaged in any intentional deception.

"Simply put, the family is not satisfied with the information they're getting," said Col. Joseph G. Curtin, a U.S. Army spokesman. "They've asked for more details, and simply put, we owe the family honest answers."

The initial investigation -- conducted by an Army captain that CNN has identified as Richard Scott -- contains much harsher judgments than those reached in a later probe by a one-star general.

In a sworn deposition given five months after Tillman's death, Scott said that some stories "have changed. They have changed to, I think, help some individuals."

Scott said that in retelling, some distances have grown longer, some lighting conditions worse and even the position of the allied Afghan soldier was changed.

In his deposition, Scott said of one soldier in the lead vehicle that fired on Tillman: "I think [he] demonstrated gross negligence. ... He recognized the individual, the [Afghan] soldier wasn't shooting in his direction but shot and killed him anyway."

Scott noted that the Rangers in the lead vehicle firing on Tillman were not under fire at the time, and "there were numerous attempts to signal to that lead vehicle that the friendlies were upon that ridge line."

The documents show the numerous attempts to signal the lead vehicle included soldiers yelling into radios to cease fire, Tillman's smoke grenade, the driver of the vehicle yelling to cease fire, and finally Tillman and the soldier next to him waving their arms frantically over their heads.

But the firing continued, with no attempt to properly identify the targets, Scott asserted.

It was -- in Scott's opinion -- a lack of discipline that should have brought serious punishment.

"The other difficult thing, though, was watching some of these guys getting off, what I thought -- with what I thought was a lesser of a punishment than what they should've received," he said.

Uniform burned

The documents reviewed by CNN show the officer who made the original decision to split the platoon was later granted limited immunity to change his testimony about who above him knew about his order. He later explained that it was only a clarification of his original testimony.

Tillman's uniform was burned by soldiers after his death. The Army's most recent investigation concludes Tillman's uniform and body armor should have been preserved, but the latest report disputes that it was burned in an attempt to cover anything up.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," concludes the report, which says the soldiers thought they were disposing of a "biohazard."

The Army said, so far, seven soldiers have received various reprimands.

"There were three officers and four enlisted personnel that were, all of them, were disciplined, all received administrative reprimands, one soldier was demoted and fined and three others were dismissed from the Ranger regiment itself," Curtin told CNN.

While no one was found "grossly negligent" nor "less than truthful" in the follow-up investigations --- more serious charges could result from the ongoing probe, which covers questions of criminal negligence, intent to cover up and the awarding of Tillman's Silver Star.

The Army said it learned a lesson from the delay in notifying the Tillman family about how their son died. The Army now has new procedures to ensure suspected friendly fire deaths are reported right away.

"The unit erred on the side of caution to get all the facts first to determine that indeed a friendly fire event had occurred," Curtin said. "And that shouldn't have happened. In hindsight, as soon as it was suspected they should have told the family about it."

"The bottom line is we will go where the truth leads us," said Curtin. We will get the answers to the best of our abilities."

For some of Pat Tillman's family that promise rings hollow. After two years of frustration, they wonder if a government investigation will ever uncover the truth.

In Baquba, gunmen shot up the convoy of Kahtan al-Bawi, chief office administrator for the police and brother of city chief of police Gassan al-Bawi, killing him and two other officers.

Five workers were killed when insurgents opened fire on their workshop in Baquba, north of Baghdad, where they were repairing car tires and welding door and window frames, according to police.

Nearby, gunmen killed a former Baath-era police officer and a relative as they traveled in their car while three police officers were wounded in a roadside bombing west of the city.

Hadi Abdul Mohsim, director of the Baquba branch of the Iraqi Association for the Defense of Human Rights, was wounded in a gun attack on his vehicle north of the city.

In Baghdad, one police officer was killed and another wounded when a bomb was set off against their patrol in the upscale Mansur district, an interior ministry source said.

Another two police officers were shot dead in separate incidents in Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein, and another in Kirkuk.

In Samarra, a merchant in the city's central Bazaar was killed by gunmen, and in the
Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad four people were hurt when a roadside bomb exploded.

Clashes between insurgents and an Iraqi army patrol in the capital's western Al-Jamia area left a soldier and a civilian wounded.

A spokesman for British forces in Basra also said 10 suspected insurgents were arrested in the southern city for possession of automatic rifles and explosives.

"We are hearing a lot of gunshots," UN employee Marina Walter said from a government office in the centre of the city. The United Nations ordered all its employees to stay where they were and declared the city a no-go zone, she said.

The marchers torched a police box in the centre of the city and a large poster of Karzai, an AFP photographer said.

Some of the demonstrators were also beating journalists, he said.

A chanting crowd of about 100 people had also gathered outside the main emergency hospital, to which some of the those wounded in the earlier incident involving US troops had been brought, an AFP reporter there said.

Police, soldiers and troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force were arriving, he said.

There were reports of other demonstrations and gunfire in other areas of the city, including outside the Serena Hotel, which is just across the road from the presidential palace. Security forces appeared to have stopped all traffic.

The unrest erupted after US troops shot dead at least four people when they opened fire on a crowd of Afghans after a traffic accident with a US military vehicle.

"There was a military flatbed truck which had a mechanical failure, maybe a brake problem, and it crashed into some civilian vehicles," Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence said.

An angry mob then torched a police station and vehicles in protest, prompting Afghan police to start shooting. Local media put the number of dead at between 20 and 30 but this could not be immediately confirmed.

An intelligence officer who did not want to be identified said initial reports were that seven people had been killed in the shootout with the US soldiers and nine wounded.

"We have absolutely no reports of coalition forces firing," said a US coalition spokesman, Colonel Tom Collins.

"These traitors killed at least 10 people. Death to them," a protestor named Ahmadullah said told an AFP reporter, referring to the American troops.

Another said: "These cowards opened fire into the crowd and killed them like sheep. First they drove into the people's cars, destroyed them and then fired onto the people who were only throwing stones at them.

"They are not brave soldiers. They are just backstreet, bad-driving thugs. They think Afghanistan is a playground where they can practise shooting," he said, without giving his name.

"We have absolutely no reports of coalition forces firing," said a US coalition spokesman, Colonel Tom Collins.

ISAF said it had some reports that warning shots were fired.

"We have unconfirmed reports that some warning shots were fired but I can't confirm who those warning shots were fired by," Major Toby Jackman said.

The accident had damaged about 12 vehicles and killed one person, with two others in a critical state, he said.

Jackman said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had despatched a helicopter to the area but was told to leave.

The chopper "had to take off again on the request of the police -- it was not helping with the crowd situation," Jackman said.

ISAF had units on hand to assist local forces but "the situation with the crowd needs to calm down a bit... we don't want to enflame the situation," he said.

The Afghan parliament broke off regular business and went into an emergency session to discuss the violence, calling for calm.

The interior ministry set up a team to go to the area to establish the number of dead and wounded.

The incident comes just over a week after a major coalition strike against Taliban insurgents in the south of Afghanistan. The country's main human rights group said that attack killed about 34 civilians.

Detainees are counted as hunger strikers if they miss nine consecutive meals, and most of the 75 hit that mark on Sunday, Durand said. Most are refusing food but continuing to drink liquids, he said.

One of the recent group is being force-fed through a tube inserted through the nose and into the stomach, as are three others who have been on a hunger strike since August 8, Durand said.

Hunger strikes have flared periodically since the first suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were taken to the U.S. base in southeast Cuba in 2002.

Durand said the current hunger strike may be timed to a series of hearings scheduled in June by the U.S. war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo, which are formally called commissions.

"This new hunger strike is likely a coordinated, but short-term, effort designed to coincide with the military commissions hearings scheduled for the next several weeks, as defense attorneys and media normally travel to Guantanamo to observe this process," Durand said by e-mail.

He said it may also be related to an outbreak of violence at the camp on May 18, when two detainees tried to commit suicide by overdosing on hoarded medicine. Several others attacked guards who rushed into a communal barracks to stop an attempted hanging that was later determined to be a ruse.

The two who overdosed are expected to recover fully and remain under observation at a hospital inside the detention camp, Durand said.

"They are alert, talking, walking and recovering," he said.

Human rights groups have long criticized the indefinite detention of foreign captives at Guantanamo. President George W. Bush said recently he would like to close Guantanamo, but administration officials said many of those held there are dangerous men who should remain locked up somewhere, if not at Guantanamo.

Military officials said 287 Guantanamo prisoners have been freed or transferred to other governments, and negotiations are ongoing to return more than 100 others to their homelands for continued detention.

During 2005 alone, 377 people deserted and are still missing, the British Broadcasting Corporation said on its website, adding that so far this year another 189 are on the run.

Without explaining how it arrived at the figures, it said some 900 deserters have evaded capture since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

Lawmaker John McDonnell told parliament on Monday that the "number of abscondees has trebled since the invasion of Iraq" as he registerd opposition to a government bill to sentence deserters to a maximum of life in prison.

McDonnell, who is among a leftwing group within the governing Labour party, said Sunday that the ministry of defence's denial "flies in the face of all the other evidence and the experience of soldiers on the ground.

"My understanding is there are a lot more seeking to avoid service, through different mechanisms," he said.

The BBC cited lawyers who represent troops at courts martial as saying that growing numbers of soldiers are seeking advice from them about avoiding service in Iraq, even if they want to stop short of deserting.

Justin Hugheston-Roberts, who represented Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, jailed for eight months for refusing to follow orders over a deployment to Iraq, said: "There has been an increase, a definite upturn."

Ben Griffin, a member of the elite Special Air Service (SAS), told his commanding officer this year that he was not prepared to return to Iraq because he said he saw US forces carrying out what he thought were illegal acts.

Griffin, who was allowed to leave the military, told the BBC that he believed many other British troops shared his views, though he would advise them to speak out rather than actually desert if they think the war is wrong.

"I can't speak for others, but there's a lot of dissent in the army about the legality of war and concerns that they're spending too much time there," he told the BBC.

In response to the BBC report of at least 1,000 deserters, a defence ministry spokeswoman told AFP: "It's not true.

"I think they are talking about the number in the army who remain absent without leave (AWOL). There have been a handful of deserters since 1989," she said.

"But basically there's no significant rise in the number of soldiers going absent without leave each year," she added.

The ministry recorded 2,670 AWOL cases in 2001, 2,970 in 2002, 2,825 in 2003, 3,050 in 2004, 2,725 in 2005, and 426 through April of 2006.

In contrast with desertion, which means that "somebody doesn't want to serve on the frontline or whatever," AWOL means that a soldier is ill or has not reported for duty, usually because of "domestic circumstances," she said.

"Most of those will then return most of the time after a couple of days, perhaps," she said.

Nor does any evidence suggest that Iraq was causing them to go AWOL, said the spokewsoman, though she did not have a breakdown of reasons for why they went AWOL.

Some 111 British troops have died in Iraq. Some 7,200 British servicemen and women are currently deployed in southern Iraq and neighboring Kuwait, where members of the Royal Air Force and other personnel are based.

Beginning in the late 1990s, a highly vocal group of neoconservatives-many involved in the Project for a New American Century-started a crusade for regime change in Iraq. In letters, articles and speeches, they argued that there was no other way to deal with Iraq than by wholesale regime change-and they did not hesitate to attack those who disagreed with their assessment as unpatriotic or cowardly. Removing Saddam Hussein was deemed to be such a priority that, almost immediately after 9/11, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was arguing that the United States should attack Iraq before dealing with Al-Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan.

Champions of regime change in Iraq were certainly not limited to Jewish Americans or, even more generally, to supporters of Israel. But it is also clear that many of those who were vociferous proponents of the Iraq invasion were also those who enthusiastically endorsed and even encouraged policy proposals advanced by the segment of the Israeli political spectrum in Benyamin Netanyahu's corner of the Likud Party-essentially requiring the United States to promote permanent revolution in the Middle East as the only way to ensure Israel's security and survival. Those who disagreed with this agenda were accused of being soft on terror and, in more recent years, of being "enemies of democracy", unsympathetic to Israel, or worse.

The important yet troubling discussion of the Israeli lobby this spring is a dramatic illustration of our difficulty in having an honest conversation about U.S. foreign policy among ourselves. The "scandal" started when two professors-John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago (who is also a valued member of The National Interest's Advisory Council) and Stephen Walt of Harvard University-published a "working paper" that concluded that U.S. foreign policy has been twisted by the "Israel Lobby" to such a degree that it no longer reflects fundamental American interests and values.

I disagree with many points in the paper, beginning with its first footnote, which asserts that the very existence of an Israel lobby suggests that a pro-Israel policy "is not in the American national interest." Policy in the modern American system is not determined by a council of the learned and the disinterested. Fundamental to our democracy is the notion that those with an interest in shaping decisions should organize, advise and advocate-and anyone who wants a role needs a lobby.

Also, although they acknowledge that what they call "the Lobby" is in fact a "loose coalition of individuals and organizations", Mearsheimer and Walt never made sufficient distinctions among the many groups and individuals who support Israel to varying degrees for varying reasons. Being committed to Israel's secure existence does not necessarily make someone a member of "the Lobby", and grouping together organizations and individuals with very different philosophies and agendas only confuses both who Israel's supporters are and how they exercise influence in Washington. Some groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, are clearly lobbyists and would not deny it. Others have strong affection for Israel but act entirely on their own without any direction from anyone inside or outside the United States. And there are people like me, who disagree with specific Israeli policies on many occasions, particularly on the settlements, but are not prepared to dictate to Israel how to protect itself while it is subject to regular terrorist attacks and menacing threats from Iran. (And here I must note that Mearsheimer and Walt might have had greater credibility if they had acknowledged that Israel never had a credible Palestinian partner willing and able to assure the security of the Jewish state in exchange for territorial concessions.)

One can also fault Mearsheimer and Walt for a lack of nuance or sensitivity. They do not express any special sympathy for the Jewish predicament in the Middle East or in Europe, the Holocaust notwithstanding. On a personal level, as someone who experienced anti-Semitism firsthand in the Soviet Union, I would have welcomed a little more understanding on their part-but there is a great difference between not being particularly sympathetic to a person or group and expressing bigotry or hatred, such as anti-Semitism. Nothing in Mearsheimer and Walt's paper merits the latter accusation.

Still, Mearsheimer and Walt are serious people raising serious issues in a serious way. They-and by extension all Americans who want a rational discussion about U.S. foreign policy-deserve better than the virtual lynching to which they were subjected by some influential pundits. A former Israeli official commented that it is "certainly time for a debate. Sadly, if predictably, response to the Harvard study has been characterized by a combination of the shrill and the smug"-including charges of bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism.1

So what made Mearsheimer and Walt's critics so mad? Their lack of nuance and subtlety hardly explains the fury-and their main points can be easily substantiated. There is a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States, which together with its allies has a major impact on U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East in general. Critics of Mearsheimer and Walt, who are having a good time ridiculing their suggestion that the very presence of the Israel lobby demonstrates that supporting Israel is not in the national interest, should also admit that lobbies are created to influence policy and Israel's lobby is no different. Likewise, it is hardly controversial that the Israel lobby is probably the most influential ethnic lobby in America. As Nicholas Goldberg wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "It seems silly to deny that a powerful lobby on behalf of Israel exists. The real question is how pernicious it is. Does it, in fact, persuade us to act counter to our national interest-or is it a positive thing?"2 This is what reasonable people should debate.

Since the interests of no two states completely coincide, it is a legitimate question to ask what the costs and benefits are of supporting another state that finds itself in a difficult fight against many opponents and what might be the price of making its enemies our enemies. Israel's opponents control enormous oil reserves and have used them in the past to penalize U.S. support of Israel, as during the 1973 oil embargo. Today, widespread hostility toward Israel in the Middle East and among Muslims in general contributes to hostility toward the United States, including, but not limited to, terrorism. Simply raising these points should not be grounds for vitriolic attack. And ignoring facts because they are inconvenient is irresponsible and offensive.

But this is exactly what Martin Peretz, the editor-in-chief of the New Republic, did. He attacked Maryland University professor and Brookings scholar Shibley Telhami for being a "simpleminded person" for his observations, cited by Mearsheimer and Walt, that "no other issue resonates with the public in the Arab world, and many other parts of the Muslim world, more deeply than Palestine. No other issue shapes the regional perceptions of America more fundamentally than the issue of Palestine."3 A "pathetic citation", Peretz says, even though Telhami has drawn this conclusion from extensive and vigorous polling in the Arab and Islamic world-and his assessments are substantiated by U.S. government studies.

But pointing out that U.S. support for Israel complicates America's standing in the Arab and Muslim world does not mean that one believes that abandoning Israel would be a net positive for the United States. Abandoning a long-standing ally costs credibility-and credibility is one of a great power's most important assets. Any perception that American support for Israel could be jettisoned-particularly as a result of hostile pressure-would embolden the Jewish state's enemies and other extremists, destabilizing the whole region. Moderate, pro-American Arab regimes would be their next victims. Finally, U.S. moral commitments to Israel (as the land of the long-suffering Jewish people and a fellow democracy) are not to be discounted.

But critics of Mearsheimer and Walt are offended by the very idea that American support of Israel could ever be to America's disadvantage-just as they were offended by those who questioned the magnitude of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein or who pointed out that constant calls for regime change (as embodied in the 1998 bipartisan Congressional resolution) and ongoing military strikes might create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their response was to attack the credibility and character and even the patriotism of those who think otherwise. Even Brent Scowcroft, who as national security advisor in the George H. W. Bush Administration played a key role in defeating Saddam during the Gulf War, was the victim of a vicious and highly personal assault. Predictably, the bulk of the character assassination directed at Mearsheimer and Walt has come from individuals who bear the lion's share of responsibility for our predicament in Iraq, yet who want to use name-calling as a way of precluding any honest examination of how it happened.

One of the most shameless responses to Mearsheimer and Walt came from Johns Hopkins professor Eliot Cohen, who-without providing any evidence-accused them of being anti-Semites. He was offended that Mearsheimer and Walt mentioned him in passing-in one of their footnotes-as part of the neoconservative network eager to use U.S. power to reshape the Middle East. How dare they even imply (which they did not) that his loyalty might be questioned when the American flag flew from his porch and his oldest son-the third generation of his family to serve as an officer in the U.S. Army-was about to return from duty in Baghdad?4

Of course, Cohen's fellow neoconservatives have never had any shame in painting their opponents as would-be traitors. (Remember the "unpatriotic conservatives"?)5 They are now shocked to receive a tiny dose of their own medicine. But this is not about name-calling; it is about accountability for the policy positions one has articulated. Cohen had a long record of public advocacy in favor of regime change in Iraq, years before 9/11. He also called for the overthrow of the Iranian government in 2001, when the moderate and pro-reform, if ineffective, President Khatami was in charge rather than the current firebrand Ahmadinejad. And Cohen was not just an outside advocate; as a member of the Defense Policy Board, he directly contributed to deliberations that led to the current American debacle in Iraq. His book Supreme Command (2002) publicly celebrated Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's tendency to disregard the advice and assessments of the professional military in planning for the Iraq campaign and its aftermath-and we know the results.6

All of us can make mistakes, particularly policy analysts. I myself did not think that Mikhail Gorbachev would be both bold and blind enough to undertake reforms that would destroy his own system. Afterward, I thought and even wrote about the reasons for my-and others'-errors in judgment about Gorbachev and hopefully learned some useful lessons. What is particularly repugnant about polemicists like Cohen is that instead of taking a decent interval to analyze their mistakes, they move at full speed to wrap themselves in the American flag to attack others.

Lawrence Kaplan, in attacking realists and other pragmatic conservatives in 2000, opined: "Were foreign policy intellectuals held to the same standards of accountability as doctors and lawyers, a substantial slice of the commentariat would have been sued for malpractice or disbarred"-commenting on the "declinists" at the time of the Soviet collapse. But many neoconservatives don't want that standard applied to them. This is precisely what Mearsheimer has been doing for the last two years. In these pages last fall, he wrote:

Neoconservatives and realists have two very different theories of international politics, which were reflected in their opposing views on the wisdom of invading and occupying Iraq. Actually, the war itself has been a strong test of the two theories. We have been able to see which side's predictions were correct. It seems clear that Iraq has turned into a debacle for the United States, which is powerful evidence-at least for me-that the realists were right and the neoconservatives were wrong.

Is this, perhaps, the real source of the vehement response to the Mearsheimer and Walt paper?

Quite a few realists, starting with Henry Kissinger (and including me), reluctantly supported the war in Iraq. We believed the assurances presented about his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and were concerned that in combination with Saddam's reckless behavior and the U.S. commitment to regime change, they made a policy of containment unsustainable, especially after September 11. But no realist was in favor of the almost unlimited goal of transforming Iraq and the Middle East, especially with the limited resources envisaged at the time.

Let me make one final observation: Israel is an important friend and ally of the United States, but that does not mean that there is anything inappropriate about discussing openly and seriously not only the advantages, but also the challenges, with which this relationship presents the United States. Israelis do it all the time. Unless one thinks that Israel's case for American support is weak, or that most Americans are secret anti-Semites who are just looking for an excuse to abandon the Jewish state, talking honestly about the U.S. relationship with Israel should be unobjectionable. We may, and sometimes clearly should, decide to stand by Israel no matter what-like we did with our nato allies. As a democracy, however, we should be allowed to make this and other foreign policy decisions with open eyes and on the basis of a free debate. Unfortunately, some of the loudest advocates of spreading American liberty to the far corners of the world seem distinctly intolerant of freedom at home.

Dimitri K. Simes is president of The Nixon Center and publisher of The National Interest.

1Daniel Levy, "So Pro-Israel that It Hurts", Ha'aretz, March 25, 2006.

2"Who's Afraid of the 'Israel Lobby'?", March 26, 2006.

3"Oil and Vinegar", New Republic (April 10, 2006).

4"Yes, It's Anti-Semitic", Washington Post, April 5, 2006.

5"Guess Who Hates America? Conservatives" was the tag line of a piece by Lawrence F. Kaplan in the New Republic that attacked people like James Schlesinger, Brent Scowcroft, Senator Pat Roberts, Richard Haass and others, including me, as "false prophets" with a "yearning to see U.S. power erode" and with a "reflexive sympathy for America's detractors abroad", (June 26, 2000).

6Benjamin Schwarz's review made this telling point: "Cohen disguise[s his] policy advocacy as objective history. . . . Cohen resurrects the old saw that war is too important to be left to the generals. But it's equally true that history is too important to leave to policy advocates" ("The Post-Powell Doctrine", New York Times, July 21, 2002).

By conventional measures, that conflict is over. Congo is no longer the playground of foreign armies; the country's first real election in 40 years is scheduled to take place this summer, and international troops have arrived to keep peace.

Meanwhile, mining firms have returned, and cell phone companies -- particularly welcome in a country that has just a few thousand fixed lines serving more than 60 million people -- are doing a booming business.

But the suffering of Congo's people continues. Fighting persists in the east, where rebel holdouts loot, rape and murder. The Congolese army, which was meant to be both symbol and protector in the reunited country, has cut its own murderous swath, carrying out executions and razing villages.

Even more deadly are the byproducts of war, the scars left by years of brutality that disfigure Congo's society and infrastructure. The country is plagued by bad sanitation, disease, malnutrition, corruption and dislocation. Routine and treatable illnesses have become weapons of mass destruction.

In many respects, Congo remains as broken, volatile and dangerous as ever, which is to say, among the very worst places on Earth. And yet Congo rarely makes daily news headlines, and its troubles are often low on international donors' lists of places to help.

There are various explanations for the neglect. Perhaps the global reservoir of wealth and good will only runs so deep. Perhaps the attention and outrage being spent to stop another African tragedy, the genocide in Darfur, has left the world too exhausted to take on Congo's.

But a choice like that comes with a cost.

Congo represents the promise of Africa as much as its misery. Its fertile fields and tropical forests cover an area bigger than California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Texas combined.

Its soils are packed with diamonds, gold, copper, tantalum (known locally as coltan and used in electronic devices such as cell phones and laptop computers) and uranium. The waters of its mighty river could one day power the continent. And yet because Congo is so rich in resources, its problems, when left to fester, tend to suck in its neighbors in a vortex of exploitation and chaos.

And so fixing Congo is essential to fixing Africa.

Says Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch: "If you want peace in Africa, then you need to deal with the biggest country right at its heart."

The task is enormous. Over the past year, Time reporters who visited the worst hit areas in the east of the country found much of it in ruins. Roads and railway lines have washed away or simply disappeared into the jungle. Hospitals and health clinics have been destroyed.

Electricity, for those lucky enough to receive it, is patchy. Refugees fleeing fighting between government troops and rebels talk of beheadings, rapes, massacres and villages being torched.

The gripping stories from Congo, coming eight years after the start of fighting, sound eerily familiar to the reports of atrocities committed in Darfur. In that sense they are powerful admonishments to those who believe the West's responsibilities in Darfur may have been lifted with the signing of a peace agreement in early May: Congo's warring parties, too, say they are abiding by a peace deal, monitored by U.N. troops.

But the dying continues. Congo provides tragic proof that in some places, peace and war can look a lot alike.