The two faces of Bernard Kerik: Bernie or Baghdad Terminator?

Bernard B. Kerik

In a visit to Iraq.

George W Bush appointed the former chief of New York Police, Bernard B. Kerik, Homeland Security Secretary, after the resignation of Tom Ridge. The Senate might approve Kerik’s designation for “Bernie”, as they call him, is a popular person. Up to now, he is supported by the two democratic senators from New York, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary R. Clinton [1] .

The American people know «Bernie» as the New York Chief of Police who organized the help on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center and evacuated more than 20 000 people. They have learned to love him after reading his best-seller memoirs The Lost Son, a Life in Pursuit of Justice [2] . The book is about his life, how he was abandoned by his father at the age of two and raised by an adoptive father with a criminal record who maltreated him. At 14, he knew his mother had been a prostitute who was tortured and murdered. He quit school and became a delinquent but was saved by his passion for martial arts. At 18 he was already a black belt and joined the military police during the war in Korea, where he learned tae known do. After redeeming himself in the army, he began an exceptional career and now he is one of the ministers of Bush II Administration.

Based on what Arnaud de Borchgrave said in The Washington Times [3], Bernie’s story only happened in America. But no matter how romantic and exact these biographic elements could be, the truth is that they do not tell us who the real Bernie is.

Actually, in Korea, Bernard B. Kerik took part in the creation of the Office of Psychological Warfare (OCPW) along with brigadier general Robert A. McClure. Back in the U.S., he was sent to the 18th Paratroop Unit as an instructor of the new school of psychological warfare founded by McClure in Fort Bragg. There, he trained the 10th Unit of Special Forces and the stay-behind foreigners among which were the French officers of the 11th Paratroop Unit of General Aussaresses and Colonels Jacques Foccart and Jacques Morlanne [4].

But Kerik was soon sent to Saudi Arabia to guarantee the protection or vigilance? of King Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz who had succeeded his father Abd al-Aziz. Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz, alcoholic and incapable, was deposed by Ulemas Council. Officially, Bernard Kerik was no longer a man in uniform and acted as a private guard, though it was obvious that he was still a member of the special services.

When he finished this mission, Bernard Kerik went back to America and he joined the police of Passaic County (New Jersey). Promptly, he became Chief of the Special Operations and Weapons Unit, predecessor of French GIGN (the French elite anti-terrorist unit) and RAID (French elite police intervention forces), just before being appointed warden of the county prison, an extremely important job for New Jersey’s most relevant prison was in Passaic. In 1986, Kerik quit this lucrative post and joined New York Police to fight crimes. By then, he was in charge of an infiltration operation against the Cali Cartel which ended up with the arrest of 60 drug dealers and the occupation of 10 tons of cocaine and 60 million dollars in cash.

During his free hours, he got involved in politics and became Rudolph Giuliani’s [5] bodyguard and chauffeur, republican candidate to mayor in 1993. They became friends and since then their careers have remained quite closed. One of Kerik’s habits was to have in his offices portraits of his idol: Colonel Oliver North, the Irangate’s “hero” of Reagan’s Administration. In 1994, the recently elected Rudolph Giuliani named him warden of the prison, where Kerik established his now famous system of evaluation called TEAMS [6].

He was able to reduce the absenteeism of jailers 31%; therefore, and reduced 44% overtime payment to compensate for the said absenteeism According to his own statistics, the use of force by jailers was reduced 76% and violence among prisoners 93%, figures quite debatable. In 1998, Giuliani appointed Kerik Chief of New York Police, the largest police force in America, with 41 000 men under his command an annual budget of 3 200 million dollars. To honor his former functions, New York central prison was renamed as “Bernard B. Kerik Complex”.

When presenting his goals at the Manhattan Institute [7], the republican think tank of New York, Bernard Kerik pointed out that he would reduce crime, raise the police morale and improve relations between the different ethnic communities or groups.

The rabbin Leib Glanz.

December 12th, 2000.

Regarding the first purpose, the republican press has highlighted the registered drop in New York’s crimes during Rudolph Giuliani’s two periods, whose two Chiefs of Police were first, William Bratton, and then Bernard B. Kerik. The idea has been to show how efficient were the “broken windows” and “zero tolerance” theories. On its side, the democratic press has reminded that this drop had already begun by the end of democrat David Dinkin’s term and the same phenomenon was also observed in other big cities, no matter what the political tendency of their administrations was. Therefore, nothing has proved the efficiency of the extremely repressive doctrines applied although its disastrous social consequences have been evident.

On the second purpose, Bernard Kerik forgot the refusals of his predecessor pertaining to negotiations with trade union on working conditions. On his third objective, he could not change the racial behavior of the municipal police. Bernard Kerik also founded a high technology Command Post to fight terrorism which was settled on floor 23 of the World Trade Center and had special areas in the basement of the building. But this extremely expensive Post could never be used because it was destroyed during September 11 attacks.

That tragic day, Bernard Kerik was recognized by his fellow citizen for organizing the help needed. However, things have changed after the publication of the report made by the presidential commission that assessed the terrorist attacks. One of its members, the former Navy Secretary, John F. Lehman, denounced the rivalries between New York Police and Fire Department which, during the crisis, were “less efficient than boy scouts”. By the end of year 2001, Kerik wrote his memoirs by using documentary makers and editors of the Police department and he had to pay a 2 500 dollars fine for exploitation of forces of public community.

Bernard B. Kerik (right) and Rudy Giuliani.

When his friend Rudolph Giuliani’s term ended, Bernard Kerik quit New York Police and became his former boss’s partner in Giuliani Partners, an advisory office of urban security. The firm’s main role is to export New York’s model to Latin America to guarantee the tranquility of the rich.

In May 2003, Donald Rumsfeld hired Bernard Kerik to form a police force in Iraq and Kerik, who began his career in Saudi Arabia and whose second wife is Syrian, was glad for going back to the Arab world. In three months, he taught a “course on democracy” to 40 000 policemen that used to work for Saddam Hussein’s regime [8].

During the course, he took his pupils to Jordan to protect them from the attacks of the resistance. He also equipped them with new weapons assessed in 1 200 million dollars, though Saddam Hussein’s police already had the necessary equipment [9] . By acting as de facto Secretary of the Interior, he was named “Baghdad’s Terminator” for the methods he used to get rid of certain Ba’thi policemen. All in all, Kerik increased the number of Iraqi policemen to 80 000, a figure his successor had to reduce to 46 000 after several mutinies.

In 2004, Bernard Kerik campaigned for George W. Bush. In the Republican Convention, he delivered a speech in which he put emphasis on “the safer world” Bush’s “strong presidency” had given us. After that, in an interview granted to The New York Daily News, he said that only a determined president could prevent terrorists from launching new attacks whereas nothing would be guaranteed with Kerry as the President of the U.S.

On December 1st, 2004, Giuliani Partners bought Ernst & Young, an international audit office. Two days later, Bernard B. Kerik, one of the partners of Giuliani Partners was named Secretary of Homeland Security. But, for some democrats, Mr. Kerik’s real mission is to work on the election of Rudolph Giuliani as the President of U.S. for year 2008, as well as financing Giuliani’s campaign.

The term “Homeland Security” has not been translated as “Internal Security” for this department’s functions go beyond guarantying the security of the national boundaries of the American territory to protect American citizen abroad. The new department was created by merging the 22 governmental agencies in what has been the most important administrative reorganization since the end of WWII. For Karl Rove, director of the White House cabinet, this reform was, essentially, a way of limiting the prerogatives exercised by these agencies’ employees and force them to obey a unique set of rules. Officially, the objective was to have a better coordination of the work done but so far this has been impossible because the new department do not have its own budget to supervise its 180 000 employees.

Considering Bernard Kerik’s total inexperience in the war against terror (we do not include the fight against the Iraqi resistance in this specialty) and his great abilities in psychological warfare, infiltration and repression, we fear that this new Homeland Security Department would quickly become a huge instrument of social control, something similar to what J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI was during McCarthyism. But none of these really matters for Miramax society has announced that it is planning to film the legendary biography of the most famous American policeman.