The Clipboard: Man on a mission

From an article¹:

Update 12/10: Looks like Kerik is out (also here and here), supposedly because "questions have arisen about the immigration status of a housekeeper and nanny he employed". Quite so.

In the first weeks after the US invasion of Iraq last year, Bernard Kerik was one of George Bush's most loyal acolytes. The burly former New York police commissioner, who lost 23 of his staff in the September 11 attacks, was sent to Baghdad on a crucial but dangerous mission to rebuild the Iraqi police force.
Now he is reportedly to be appointed as the new chief of the homeland security department, putting him in charge of one of the largest and most powerful departments in Washington. That will make him the first of the Americans sent to Baghdad to be rewarded with a high-profile position in George Bush's administration...

...But the reality has proved quite different. The obsession with figures disguised a poorly thought-out retraining programme and significant shortfalls in the most basic equipment, including radios, guns, flak jackets and cars. Fewer than half the police had been retrained. Most worryingly, at least a third were deemed so incompetent or reliable that this summer US commanders decided they should simply be sacked and handed a pay-off worth a total of $60m. Recruitment has begun again, much more slowly and this time with longer retraining programmes. (link)

This does not leave one optimistic that we'll be seeing more competence in Bush's homeland security policies.

Added: Or what about this:

As for Homeland Security, let's reiterate Kerik's Iraq credentials. Back in 2002, he signed on for six months in Baghdad to train the Iraqi police.

Neither he nor his top aide, John Picciano, were returning phone calls yesterday, perhaps because they were trying to come up with a credible story for why Kerik bugged out of Baghdad after only three months with no explanation.

Or here and here. And then there's this. And more. And more and more and more.

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Complete text of the article, Man on a mission, by Rory McCarthy

In the first weeks after the US invasion of Iraq last year, Bernard Kerik was one of George Bush's most loyal acolytes. The burly former New York police commissioner, who lost 23 of his staff in the September 11 attacks, was sent to Baghdad on a crucial but dangerous mission to rebuild the Iraqi police force.
Now he is reportedly to be appointed as the new chief of the homeland security department, putting him in charge of one of the largest and most powerful departments in Washington. That will make him the first of the Americans sent to Baghdad to be rewarded with a high-profile position in George Bush's administration.

When he was in Iraq last year, Kerik cut a distinct figure, wearing a sand-coloured safari jacket with a handgun always strapped to his belt. Like the others around him he lived in a trailer but worked in a palace. When he travelled around Baghdad he wore a flak jacket and moved in an armoured car. He spoke openly about America's "mission" to defend a "freedom" that was attacked on September 11.

"Iraq is a country that was a threat to that freedom and this is a country in which now we have the opportunity to show the Iraqi people why freedom is so great, why the United States is so great, why the UK is so great," he said in an interview with the Guardian in Saddam Hussein's former palace in Baghdad in June last year. "It's only been two months. It's going to take a while before the Iraqis understand that freedom and what it's really all about."

He correctly identified good policing as one of the keys to restoring peace and stability to the chaos of post-war Iraq. But 18 months later, the weakness of the Iraq police and other security forces remains one of the most significant problems faced by the US military.

Under Kerik, and the advisers who came after him, a great emphasis was put on getting large numbers of policemen back on the streets. That policy produced attractive headline figures - around 90,000 bobbies back on the beat - suggesting that real progress towards security and stability was being made. Large areas of the country were expected to be under the control of Iraqi police and National Guard units by now.

But the reality has proved quite different. The obsession with figures disguised a poorly thought-out retraining programme and significant shortfalls in the most basic equipment, including radios, guns, flak jackets and cars. Fewer than half the police had been retrained. Most worryingly, at least a third were deemed so incompetent or reliable that this summer US commanders decided they should simply be sacked and handed a pay-off worth a total of $60m. Recruitment has begun again, much more slowly and this time with longer retraining programmes.

The reason behind the drastic overhaul of the police was all too clear. During a wave of uprisings in the Sunni city of Falluja and across Shia towns in the south in April and May, thousands of policemen simply deserted their posts or turned to fight alongside insurgents. It was certainly not the case for all policemen - in fact some have proved extremely brave, risking their lives simply going to work each day. More than 700 have been killed in a series of horrific suicide car bombs and shootings since the war. But desertions remain a serious problem.

In Falluja, before the latest US assault, the Iraqi police were working in cooperation with the insurgents who ran the city. In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen overran at least nine police stations in a wave of violence last month. Around three-quarters of the 4,000-strong police force in the city deserted or joined the insurgents. The police chief was fired and then arrested on suspicion of helping the rebels. After the fighting subsided, the US commander in Mosul admitted he was now facing a colossal job repairing the damage with elections less than two months away. "We have the daunting task of rebuilding a legitimate and loyal police force in the city, and that's going to take a long time - and we don't have a long time," said Brigadier General Carter Ham.

Just this morning the police came under attack again. In two separate insurgent raids in Baghdad, one in the west of the city, one to the north, at least 30 people were killed, including 16 policemen. It is likely to be many years before Iraq's police force becomes a properly trained and respected organisation, capable of maintaining law and order in a country that is for now still wracked by violence.

reference=http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1365914,00.html?gusrc=rss