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-   -   Bush's choice for DHS: Bernard Kerik (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety-security-issues/376887-bushs-choice-dhs-bernard-kerik.html)

mizzou65201 Dec 3, 2004 12:17 am

Bush's choice for DHS: Bernard Kerik
 
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has chosen former New York police
commissioner Bernard Kerik to run the Department of Homeland Security, a senior administration official said Thursday.

***

Official announcement coming Friday.

mizzou65201 Dec 3, 2004 12:23 am

Don't know much about the guy, but here is a snippet from a pro-Bush op-ed column Kerik wrote in the New York Post the day before the election:


Originally Posted by Bernard Kerik, NY Post, Nov. 1, 2004
I am voting for President Bush because he understands this threat, and he has responded, building from the ground up a Department of Homeland Security that links 22 agencies and 180,000 federal employees together into a single, unified effort, and an Information Network that puts them in direct contact with another 700,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.

For the first time, these brave men and women were given a national strategy to follow, one that is focused on intelligence and warning, transportation security, and defending against catastrophic events. And to make sure they had the tools to do the job, President Bush tripled the Homeland Security budget and delivered the Patriot Act, which allowed these officers to share information in a way they had never been able to before, to uncover terror cells in Lackawanna New York, and foil terrorist plots against the Brooklyn Bridge.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/op...ists/33106.htm

grouse Dec 3, 2004 3:46 am

Just as long as it isn't Loy.

underpressure Dec 3, 2004 3:49 am

I am fairly sure he is a nice guy, but does he have the experience and political savy to run the largest agency in DC (Outside of the pentagon)?

I just don't think so.

travis bickle Dec 3, 2004 4:22 am


Originally Posted by underpressure
I am fairly sure he is a nice guy, but does he have the experience and political savy to run the largest agency in DC (Outside of the pentagon)?

I just don't think so.

good day,

hard to say. as the commissioner of police in nyc, he definitely has political savvy -- remember that is a political, civil service position and he was in it and had to work with politicians at all levels during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 [e.g., giulani, pataki, shrub, etc].

even without 9/11, he has had to work with the pols on a day-to-day basis running nyc's police dept -- not an easy task by any means when you consider all the aspects of that sort of job in a city which is constantly a major player in world events.

he started out as a military policeman, became a "cop on the beat", and rose to nyc police commissioner -- so, he more than likely has a couple of operating braincells; now i hope he can use them.

GUWonder Dec 3, 2004 4:45 am

Isn't the NYC police department bigger than the Iraqi Army was 1-year after Pres. Bush & Co. declared "Mission Accomplished"?

travis bickle Dec 3, 2004 6:37 am


Originally Posted by GUWonder
Isn't the NYC police department bigger than the Iraqi Army was 1-year after Pres. Bush & Co. declared "Mission Accomplished"?

good day,

depends on how you count.
this is from the nypd web site (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/misc/pdfaq2.html#41) -

How many police officers are there in NYPD?
There are currently 39,110 police officers in NYPD. This is the total number of Police Officers, Detectives, Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, Deputy Inspectors, Inspectors, Deputy Chiefs, Assistant Chiefs, and Bureau Chiefs budgeted for fiscal year 2003.


and here is the information on the "iraqi security forces", as written by joe galloway (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwash...ay/9850887.htm, dated Oct 6, 2004) -
A senior American military offer, who asked that he not be named, told me this week that at present we have 230,000 Iraqi security and military forces in uniform. This number will top 250,000 within another month or so.

so, kerik has had to handle a somewhat large bureaucracy that is subject to scrutiny by the pols. the only question is, "what type of system will a cop implement/use overlooking security at a national level?"

red456 Dec 3, 2004 8:00 am

scares me
 

"what type of system will a cop implement/use overlooking security at a national level?"
scares the crap out of me to even contemplate it.

bdschobel Dec 3, 2004 8:36 am

I'm going to give Kerik the benefit of the doubt for now. He was one of the sensible people who stopped evacuating Grand Central Station every time some nutcase called in a bomb threat after 9/11/01. I believe that he has good judgment with respect to what is a real threat and what is not. For instance, I can imagine him changing many of the TSA's stupider practices. On the other hand, he is politically savvy, which could stop him from doing what he knows makes sense!

Bruce

bdschobel Dec 3, 2004 9:22 am

Good news from today's NY Times:

"Mr. Kerik is likely to confront turnover in the top ranks of the department. A Republican official said Asa Hutchinson, the undersecretary for border and transportation security and a former Republican member of Congress, had decided to return to politics, to run for governor in Arkansas, his home state, in 2006."

Complete article on Kerik nomination (requires free registration):

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/po...d-cabinet.html

Bruce

greggwiggins Dec 3, 2004 12:44 pm

"Questions For Kerik"
 
A column from slate.com:

http://www.slate.com/id/2110638/

GUWonder Dec 3, 2004 3:31 pm


Originally Posted by travis bickle
good day,

depends on how you count.
this is from the nypd web site (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/misc/pdfaq2.html#41) -

How many police officers are there in NYPD?
There are currently 39,110 police officers in NYPD. This is the total number of Police Officers, Detectives, Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, Deputy Inspectors, Inspectors, Deputy Chiefs, Assistant Chiefs, and Bureau Chiefs budgeted for fiscal year 2003.


and here is the information on the "iraqi security forces", as written by joe galloway (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwash...ay/9850887.htm, dated Oct 6, 2004) -
A senior American military offer, who asked that he not be named, told me this week that at present we have 230,000 Iraqi security and military forces in uniform. This number will top 250,000 within another month or so.

so, kerik has had to handle a somewhat large bureaucracy that is subject to scrutiny by the pols. the only question is, "what type of system will a cop implement/use overlooking security at a national level?"

Thanks for the information.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. He did a reasonably good job in NYC and running a 39,000 man organization which, if anything, at least provided him an opportunity to acquire some administrative skills. Whether those skills were acquired or not or whether they bear fruit on the national level depends on lots of other factors.

[Sidebar: Some of the numbers and information given by the Pentagon should be taken with a serious grain of salt. Amongst the numbers that are purposefully being padded or muddled as part of psy ops is the dissemination of false information regarding the size of the Iraqi security services and Iraqi National Army in particular. I doubt if in May 2004 the INA (not the security services in total) was more than double the size of the NYPD. The Iraqi police forces were a much higher priority than the Iraqi Army for much of the last 19 months and it's apparent enough what our money there has bought us. According to Kurdish leaders, the number of Kurdish peshmerga militia "security forces" exceeds the size of all the Iraqi security services if their contributions were removed from those numbers.]

tom911 Dec 10, 2004 8:25 pm

well....he's gone, too
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's pick to become homeland security secretary, former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, withdrew his name from consideration on Friday night, the White House said.

Reuters link

Cholula Dec 10, 2004 9:18 pm


Originally Posted by tom911
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's pick to become homeland security secretary, former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, withdrew his name from consideration on Friday night, the White House said.

Reuters link

Good catch, tom911!! Highly interesting. It appears from the article that there was a shade of scandal in Kerik's background.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.....

GUWonder Dec 10, 2004 9:26 pm


Originally Posted by Cholula
Good catch, tom911!! Highly interesting. It appears from the article that there was a shade of scandal in Kerik's background.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.....

Who talks about Zoe or Kimba anymore? :D


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