Recalled to Active Duty

By Peter A. Lynch

Weighed down with 40 pounds of body armor, carrying an M-4 rifle, an M-9 pistol, and a pack jammed with a sleeping bag and Ka-Bar knife, I peer out the rear of a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter carrying twelve Marines. The rotor blades roar, and clouds of dust as fine as baby powder billow as we lift off on our nighttime mission to Baghdad. The flickering lights of Fallujah twinkle and then go black as we quickly pass over grazing land on our way to the U.S. Embassy compound. It is late March 2007.

Just two months earlier I had been sitting at my desk in San Diego, looking out my office window at the Coronado Bay Bridge. When orders recalling me to active duty arrived via email, I was in the office preparing for a deposition on an insurance litigation matter. I was surprised to receive the orders, which were part of President Bush's decision to increase the number of troops in Iraq for the "surge." I was an officer on the retired reserve list. I was 48 years old and had been practicing tort law for 23 years. "Aren't you too old?" asked many concerned members of the firm.

The last time I was mobilized was for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This time I would be going to Iraq to help restart the traditional criminal court system in Anbar Province--the country's largest and the heart of the Sunni insurgency--where Fallujah is located.

Now I was airborne on my way to find judges in Baghdad to hear cases in Anbar, where the criminal justice system had ground to a halt. When the Fallujah police--supported by the Marines--cleared Fallujah neighborhoods block by block earlier in the year, the city's jail population had exploded from about 150 prisoners to more than 800. Insurgents had assassinated 31 judges and 46 attorneys. Criminal judicial hearings by Anbari investigative judges hadn't been conducted in four years. Without those hearings, which develop almost all of the evidence used at trial, no lawfully sanctioned method existed to prosecute or release criminal suspects held in Anbar's jails.

A 9 a.m. meeting was scheduled with the head investigative judge at the Criminal Court of Iraq to discuss the Anbar jail problems. The judge, a weary-looking man in his forties, wore an exquisitely tailored Western-style suit and tie. His judicial robe hung on a coatrack nearby.

Though he understood English perfectly, the judge and I spoke through an interpreter, the better to ensure that nothing would be misconstrued and neither party would be embarrassed by making a mistake.

"Can you spare some investigative judges for Fallujah?" I asked.

"How soon will you need these judges?" he asked softly. "How long do you anticipate needing them? How many suspects are waiting for hearings?"

His biggest concern was safety: "What will the security arrangements be? What will the U.S. military and Fallujah police do to ensure that my judges, prosecutors, investigators, and the suspects are protected from insurgent attacks?"

We discussed potential locations for the investigative hearings (Fallujah's main courthouse had been hit by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device), ground transportation and security along the convoy route, and on-call artillery support to move the suspects out of the center of the city. Culturally appropriate hearing rooms had to be built to ensure the judges felt at home. And local Iraqi food and chai tea had to be procured. American meals-ready-to-eat would not be appropriate.

An initial agreement was reached to send a senior investigative judge to Fallujah to evaluate whether hearings could be safely conducted there. Two weeks later the hearings began.

During April 2007, 142 hearings were conducted. Two months later those same judges returned to conduct 415 hearings in eight days. Later that year judges from Fallujah and Ramadi began to hear investigative criminal hearings themselves--the Baghdad judges were no longer needed.

I met the head investigative judge on several more occasions, and his steadfast resolve to bring justice to his countrymen was inspiring.

"We do not view the criminal suspects as Shia, Kurdish, or Sunni," he told me. "They are Iraqis, and all are entitled to a fair hearing."

I can only hope for continued progress and the safety of all involved.

Peter A. Lynch is a member in the San Diego office of Cozen O'Connor. He received a Bronze Star in May for his work in Iraq with the Marines.

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