Guns, Cash and Kerik

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?pid=2058

12/09/2004

Wrong Man for the Job

In late May of last year, Bernard Kerik--President Bush's nominee for Homeland Security Secretary--took a leave from his lucrative job at Giuliani Partners and headed for Iraq. The Defense Department lured Kerik away with a $140,000 salary and the prestigious position of training the new Iraqi police force.

"I will be there at least six months--until the job is done," Kerik told Newsday. He jumped ship less than four months into his six-month contract with the job far from done. Kerik said he needed a vacation.The Pentagon alleged he'd completed his task. Over a year later, many details of Kerik's stay--particularly why he left early--remain shrouded in mystery. The known facts do not offer a ringing endorsement.

** Kerik's oversight of a $50 million police-training contract for the controversial defense contractor DynCorp produced few tangible results.

** Kerik spent $1.2 billion to train 35,000 troops in Jordan even though France and Germany offered to provide training for free. He also bought $20 million worth of rifles and revolvers from Jordan when the weapons could've been obtained for far less in Iraq.

** Kerik hired Iraqi policemen without background checks who later turned out to be hardened criminals. He re-hired policeman formerly employed by Saddam Hussein and bragged of training 37,000 new officers. Currently, roughly a quarter of the force Kerik left in place--a total of 30,000 officers--have been or will soon be fired by the US government and paid $60 million in severance payments, according to the far-from-antiwar New York Post.

** A few weeks before leaving, Kerik announced a plan to train 28,000 Iraqi officers at a US base in Hungary. A week later, Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgessy denied ever discussing an arrangement with Kerik and expressed shock at reading of the details for the first time in the press, according to the International Herald Tribune. The US Embassy in Budapest soon confirmed Medgessy's version. Kerik has never publicly explained what he was talking about.

Soon after his departure, the Philadelphia Inquirer described the Iraqi police force as "understaffed, underequipped, and in no position to stamp out the gangs of kidnappers, carjackers and thieves--let alone bombers."

Smirk Smirk..