The Final Curtain for Bernard Kerik

The rise and fall of Bernard Kerik is less an American chronicle of a rag-to-riches tale with Gatsby-esque overtures, than a story of conventional political cronyism and personal excess.

Born of an alcoholic father and a mother who was a prostitute, Bernard Kerik's early years were filled with military duty and stints in police enforcement and security work in both America and Saudi Arabia.  In the 1990's he became a close ally of former New York city Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for whom he served as personal bodyguard and driver.  Mr. Giuliani advanced Kerik into a senior position in the Corrections Department, from which he went on to become the agency’s commissioner.  Afterward, Mr. Giuliani elevated Mr. Kerik to the position of NYC's 40th police commissioner, a post that he would hold for the final sixteen months of Giuliani's second term in office. In what would become a repeating motif to his behavior, Kerik would ride with a security detail of fellow officers who had been involved in traumatic career activities and participate in typical beat-cop activities; actions that are best described as atypical behavior for the head of New York's police.

After 9/11, Kerik attracted a national spotlight and notoriety for his stoic posturing along aside Mr. Giuliani in what became one of America's most difficult and painful moments in its history.  If Kerik had quietly disappeared from the limelight his reputation and contribution to America would have probably remained untarnished.  However, the administration of George W. Bush, always looking for loyal soldiers for their cause, recruited him with a $140,000 salary to serve in the position of training the new Iraqi police force.

His tenure in Iraq was less than inspiring.  According to the Nation magazine,

• 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.

According to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief:

[Kerik] held precisely two staff meetings during his tenure. His main activity was going on nighttime raids against indeterminate targets accompanied by a shadowy former U.S. colonel and a 100-man Iraqi paramilitary force, and then sleeping most of the day. After accomplishing nothing in three months, training no police forces, he departed.

Upon being vetted by the Bush Administration for the post of Secretary of Homeland Security, his life started to unravel.  As discussed by Allan Lengel of AOL News:

In November [2009], Kerik, 54, pleaded guilty to two counts of tax fraud, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and five separate counts of making false statements to the federal government. Two of the charges related to statements Kerik made to the White House while the Bush administration was considering him to lead the Department of Homeland Security. He also agreed to pay restitution of $187,931.

Kerik admitted that he failed to report the $255,000 value of a renovation done free of charge by a New Jersey contractor that was trying to land a city license. He also admitted that he lied about the renovations and his relationship with the contractor, which had suspected mob ties.

In the end, Kerik's own petty greed, want for material wealth, and personal status, lead him to disaster.  He was sentenced in February 2010 to four years incarceration.