Buildup of courts in Iraq

While politicians and military experts debate the success or failure of the troop buildup in Iraq, an El Paso County judge is seeing the effects firsthand.

Army Col. David Shakes, on a oneyear leave of absence from his 4th Judicial District court bench, is working as an adviser to help reform the Iraq criminal justice system, especially the courts.

In a recent interview from Iraq, Shakes provided a glimpse into what it’s like to bolster a country’s court system when it’s racked by war after years of being corrupted by dictatorship.

An average of 60 people per day are arrested, mostly by multinational forces. They join the estimated 26,000 being held — including an increasing percentage of juveniles, Shakes said.

“Our enemies are taking unconscionable advantage of kids and using them to commit terrorist acts,” said Shakes, who has been working in the International — or Green — Zone in Baghdad since early 2007. The insurgents “are using their naiveté to take advantage of them.”

Iraqi courts were ill-equipped to deal with juveniles, but it’s one of several areas in which Shakes thinks they’ve made great strides in the past year.

Shakes said that 16- to 18-hour workdays, seven days a week, have yielded what he calls “comprehensive criminal justice system reforms focused on the processing of Iraq defendants and detainees.”

One of those reforms, as simple as it sounds, involves keeping defendants’ case files with them as they move from court to court.

“Can you imagine a defendant being in Denver while his file is in Colorado Springs?” Shakes said. “It’s things that might appear to be small, but are very important.”

The growing number of detainees brought in during the buildup of U.S. troops exposed weaknesses in Iraq’s system, he said. For one thing, soldiers are not police officers and often don’t have time to get fingerprints, interview witnesses and collect evidence.

A war zone is not the best place to do a “deliberate investigation,” Shakes said.

Iraqi and American officials agreed to hire and train police and judicial investigators to help.

“The best way to fight the insurgency is to empower the local police and courts,” Shakes said.

Another is to educate insurgents and make them productive members of society, he said.

Under new programs of Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, the deputy commanding general for detainee operations, insurgents are paired with religious leaders who can steer them to that body of Islamic theology that does not condone violence.

They try to teach them job skills and, under a new probationlike program, release some of them if they sign a pledge to keep the peace.

“We can hopefully help them understand there is a mainstream Islam besides the jihadist ideology,” Shakes said.

Shakes said a recently opened juvenile training center, called Dar al-Hikmah, or “house of wisdom,” attempts to help child detainees steer clear of further trouble. The center allows them to play soccer and take classes in Arabic, geography, English, math, civics and geometry. For many, it’s their first shot at a formal education.

“We’re trying to give them some basic skills to allow them to complete their education, get a job and insulate them from being victims to these jihadists,” Shakes said. “This may sound like a big social work project, but it’s not. There are collateral benefits to doing this. It’s a smart way to fight the war.”

Shakes’ tour is scheduled to end in January, and he could return to the bench here by February.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0110 or dennis.huspeni@gazette.com