Iraq's Attorneys Practicing in a State of Fear

"The occupation adopted the law of power and not the power of law," Hamdoun said. "The lawyer's job is that of civilization."

Cherif Bassiouni, a law professor at DePaul University and president of the International Human Rights Law Institute, said the authority's biggest mistake was not having a comprehensive plan for legal reform or the commitment of resources needed to restore the physical and intellectual capital lost soon after the invasion.

"When the U.S. military came in, they basically destroyed the entire infrastructure of the state," Bassiouni said. "Not willingly. But by allowing the looting of all the public buildings, by firing everyone who was a member of the Baath Party, basically the state was destroyed."

One of the authority's first acts was to dismiss many of the country's most experienced jurists on the grounds that they had ties to Hussein's Baath Party. Many did: Hamdoun, for example, served 12 years in the Iraqi parliament under Hussein.

Abou El Fadl said the decision to dismiss the judges was a mistake. "We dismissed a very large number of them on ideological grounds," he said. "We have not been very sympathetic to claims that 'I had no choice but to be a member of the Baath Party to accomplish anything in life.' In doing so, we lost a great asset and a reservoir of legal minds."

The decision still rankles Abbas Hasan al-Anabaki, who said he was among those purged.

"I used to be a first-degree judge in Baghdad, and politically independent, and we were never linked to Saddam or others," he said. "The Iraqi lawyers are totally confident in the American judicial system. They just hoped that the reform would have been done by the American judicial system, not the army and intelligence service."

Now, the lawyers said, nearly every part of the criminal justice system is tainted, from the moment police arrest someone to the trial, the judgment and the corrections system.

"The whole system has collapsed," Bassiouni said. "This has become a lawless country. It's a little bit like the days of the Far West in America. In the early 1800s, you may occasionally have the sheriff who can get people to hand in their six-shooters at the entrance of the town, but basically it's a free-for-all."

Anabaki, who has become a defense lawyer since he lost his judgeship, said police have left his clients in jail for up to a year before even reaching the courthouse, rather than presenting them to an investigative judge within 24 hours.

"Justice lacks all credibility and meaning," Anabaki said. "There is pressure from the political parties and the tribal leaders and the mafia gangs and the American forces."

Raid Kadhum al-Dulaimi, another lawyer, said he was frustrated by a different problem: a lack of cooperation from the Iraqi police, especially the commandos who raid the homes of suspected insurgents. "They don't allow us to read the cases of detainees," he said. "We can't defend anyone who is accused without reading their file."