Bernard Kerik and Iraq

Bernard Kerik was appointed to head up the new and often ridiculed Homeland Security Department. One of the recent and more prominent bullet points on his resume was as Interim Interior Minister in Iraq. His responsibility was to set up and train the new Iraqi police force. Those jeering Kerik have focused on his time in Iraq. Fred Kaplin leads the way:

Whatever Kerik did, it wasn't much. The Iraqi police forces were—and still are—notoriously ill-trained and ill-equipped for the gigantic challenges they face. It's not clear why Kerik left earlier than scheduled. By all accounts, he was a wash-out. One Pentagon official who was in Baghdad at the time calls Kerik's tenure "notably unspectacular." His tenure did produce some grist for scandal. Members of Iraq's interim governing council expressed loud dismay that Kerik spent $1.2 billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police in Jordan. More annoying still was his decision to buy from Jordan 20,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 50,000 revolvers, and 10 million rounds of ammunition, when he could have rounded up all those weapons far more cheaply—if not for free—from the disbanded Iraqi army.

The regular refrain coming from the "Iraq is a disaster" crowd often points to the security problem with a zero defects expectation. Kaplan says Kerik didn't accomplish much and quotes some anonymous Pentagon source as validation of this view. Color me unconvinced. I think a little background and perspective is required to properly asses Kerik's job.

The Iraqi police force that existed prior to the invasion was one filled by Baath Party members loyal to Saddam Hussein. The primary function of enforcing the police state fell to Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat. Mukhabarat members infiltrated all Iraqi organizations, from the army to local government positions, in order to monitor and weed out any groups or individuals disloyal to Saddam.

Then the U.S. invaded this tranquil scene. The operation was swift and decisive and in three short weeks Saddam's army and government had completely collapsed. A police force that normally had functioned as a proxy for Saddam had melted back into the population to avoid detection by coalition forces and vengeful Iraqis. The famous images of rampant looting demonstrate this complete loss of security.

Naturally, the United States entered Iraq with both military and political objectives. The military objective of defeating the Iraqi army and removing Saddam and his government was achieved, however the political objective of building a government with the support of the Iraqi people was to be a long and continuous process. From a capability standpoint, the U.S has shown a remarkable ability to swiftly and asymmetrically eliminate any threats they face. However, from the beginning of U.S. occupation until the last soldier leaves Iraqi soil, U.S. forces will face the delicate balance between how much force to apply to eliminate threats without losing the support of the Iraqi people in the process. The necessity of demonstrating our good intentions to the Iraqi people will always be our soft underbelly.

For eight months after the invasion, Saddam Hussein was still at large and his security forces had been tasked with disrupting and infiltrating the coalition efforts to rebuild the country. Kerik's monumental task was to rebuild an Iraqi police force from the ground-up, free of Baath members and any of Saddam's henchmen that hoped to return Saddam to power.

In Kerik's own words, when asked about what Iraq's security and police force existed at his arrival:

(T)here wasn't much of anything. We basically started from scratch. The police department, as the military did, sort of dismantled. The looting that went on in the early days, eliminated the police stations, the cars, the infrastructure, the communications. And, you know, I hear people on a daily basis criticize the president, you're not moving fast enough. In four months we brought back 40,000 police officers, 400 cars in Baghdad, 35 stations, communications all over the country just about to the police; we've ordered equipment, we've put together a 2003 budget, we did it in four months. I couldn't have done that in New York City as the police commissioner in five years. So I'm not really sure what the critics are talking about when they're saying it's taking too long.

In four months, Kerik created and trained a police force of 40,000 Iraqis. This process is ongoing and will continually be tested. In such a short time, it is understandable that a few insurgents were able to infiltrate their ranks. But, the 90% of Iraq not inhabited by Sunnis has been remarkably secure, while the unsecured Sunni areas, where the insurgents are exploiting our soft underbelly, continue to improve through a combination of recent U.S. operations to clean out insurgent strongholds, like in Falluja and Najaf, and better training of Iraqi security officers.

Kerik was given a thankless and historically unprecedented task with the eyes of the world on him. Under no reasonable circumstances could anyone have trained a strong police force free of Baathists and insurgents while maintaining the goodwill of the Iraqi people with the acceptance of the worldwide opinion. With his experience of performing and thankless and unprecedented tasks, I can't think of a better person to head-up the thankless and unprecedented Homeland Security Department.