"A bus full of 15 Iraqi lawyers carrying a four-page, single-spaced letter to President Bush arrived at the White House on Tuesday. Their mission was to request less U.S. help in building prisons and more in establishing the rule of law. There was no immediate official response, and the experiences of the past four years indicate nothing will be done.

"America's rule of law effort in Iraq has focused almost entirely on police, prisons and prosecution," said the letter to Bush, which was signed by Minshidi. In post-Hussein Iraq, detained terrorism suspects are still in jail after being cleared by the courts, and the lawyers complained about "a policeman and prosecutor's definition of what rule of law means." Today it means a policy limited to law enforcement (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/14/AR2007111402033.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR).

The Iraqi lawyers wrote Bush that "the number of Iraqi citizens in detention by Iraqi police and prisons as well as the detention centers of the Multinational Forces in Iraq is large and still growing." They did not mention it in the letter, but they are appalled that the United States has allocated $125 million to build prisons while more modest amounts needed to build a legal system are denied."