Kerik, Homeland Security Czar - Scathing article from The Register

[Bill Stewart]

The Register has a really friendly article about Kerik,
Giuliani's buddy who's proposed for Homeland Security Czar.
(El Reg is primarily an online technology newswire,
but they do comment on other issues, especially if they
have technical aspects - they especially rag on the
UK's Home Secretary Blunkett's National ID Card proposals.)

http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/06/kerik_homeland_security_secretary/

High-school drop-out to become Homeland Security Czar

By Thomas C Greene
Published Monday 6th December 2004 11:07 GMT

President George W. Bush has nominated former New York City Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik to replace Tom Ridge as Homeland Security
Secretary, marking a significant departure from his tendency to choose
educated, Patrician types for his Cabinet.

Kerik, a high-school drop-out abandoned at age four by his prostitute
mother in the gritty town of Patterson, New Jersey, served as an Army MP in
South Korea, and later worked in private international security rackets,
most interestingly in Saudi Arabia.

He joined the New York City Police Department in 1985. He followed that
with a stint as Warden of the Passaic County Jail in New Jersey, and became
the Training Officer and Commander of the Special Weapons and Operations
Units. In 1998 he was named New York Corrections Commissioner, and
established an ironclad, head-cracking discipline in the City's notorious
detention facilities.

A favorite of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Kerik had the honor
of seeing the Manhattan Detention Complex, known to locals as "the Tombs,"
re-named the Bernard B. Kerik Complex by then-mayor Giuliani. Kerik left a
minor cloud of corruption behind, with allegations that one of his
lieutenants used correctional staff to work illegally in Republican
campaigns.


In 2000, Giuliani named Kerik Police Commissioner, to assist him in a vast
anti-crime crackdown, where the chief tactic was for police to pounce
aggressively on even the most chickenshit offences, such as spitting on the
sidewalk.

Upon his retirement from City politics, Giuliani decided to cash in on
post-9/11 security hysteria by founding his own security outfit, Giuliani
Partners LLC. Kerik has served as senior vice president at Giuliani
Partners, and CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC, a vendor of law-enforcement
"performance systems". Meanwhile, Giuliani has founded several spin-offs,
such as Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC, and the Rudolph W. Giuliani Advanced
Security Centers (ASC), a cyber-security outfit formed in connection with
Ernst & Young.

Recently, Kerik shipped out to Iraq to train the local policemen who are
routinely blown to pieces by insurgents and terrorists. There, he enjoyed
the snappy titles of Interim Minister of the Interior, and Senior Policy
Advisor to the US Presidential Envoy to Iraq's Coalition Provisional
Authority. Kerik lasted only four months, and the Iraqi police are still as
incompetent, weak, and corrupt as when he arrived in country.

Kerik began making his transition from local to national politics by
campaigning for President Bush's re-election, alongside his political
patron and business partner, Rudy Giuliani. Kerik has been a devoted
booster of the so-called Patriot Act, having given several speeches in its
support while campaigning for Bush.

In anticipation of his rise to national office, Kerik recently sold his
$5.8m in shares of Taser International, makers of absolutely safe police
stun guns that are now routinely used against old women and children.

He is expected to be confirmed by the Senate without difficulty. .