Nothing signals the impermanence of the American occupation of Iraq quite so much as the humble trailer. Hauled in by the thousands after the 2003 invasion, trailers serve as living quarters, office space, and even fast-food restaurants at U.S. military bases. In some places, dozens are linked together to make large complexes. So when the lawyers on the Baghdad provincial reconstruction team (111 civilian and military officials charged with helping rebuild Iraq) won a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State to establish a legal defense center for indigent Iraqi prisoners, the housing was preordained. The center opened May 11 in five trailers in a guarded compound in the Rusafa neighborhood of central Baghdad.
The American lawyers who asked for the funding, and who oversee the center, say it represents a new paradigm — not just for the Iraqis, for whom legal representation is typically reserved for the wealthy or well-connected — but for a five-year U.S.-led justice reform program that until now has been preoccupied with capturing, holding, and prosecuting suspected insurgents. Wilson Myers, a civilian contract attorney hired by the State Department, and the senior lawyer on the Baghdad provincial reconstruction team, believes that the American approach to “rule of law” — a term government officials apply to any justice-related project — should also include the foundational aspect: aid to law schools, lawyers and local criminal and civil courts. “The [defense center] is an example of a shift of focus from kinetic to nonkinetic operations by the rule of law community in Iraq,” Myers says. “Detainees’ due process is now as important as their detention.”
