When I listened to a recent interview with Bernard Kerik, who was New York City’s police commissioner on 9/11, he sounded like he was right out of central casting — a New York tough guy that I couldn’t quite trust.
His goes from dropping out of high school, to joining the army, to working security for the Saudi royal family, to joining the NYPD, to becoming Rudy Giuliani’s personal bodyguard, to taking over as commissioner of the city Department of Corrections, to becoming police commissioner, to being appointed Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq!
Read this guy’s Wikipedia page. He has lived a wild life. Like, his career has the weirdest structure.
Kerik’s only distrustful move is getting a guy to “illegally” work on his porch.
You left out the good record at Riker’s Island, i.e. attacks down.
As for his “weird career path,” yes, he’s a doer, not a tester; he does. He did not do cursum scholarium, the course of scholars.
One thing he did do then had to walk away from was the Iraqi PD, as that is too much for the toughest American cop. Long story, but Iraqi PD was minor stuff. Any criminal detective work was the Muhkarbat, aka secret police. We so hosed them by trying to make them a police force AND drinking the COIN Kool Aide, which is fatal to police for no gains.
What they ended up doing, however long after Kerik and indeed after the IRAQI PD saw through us, gave them a zero recidivism rate: the desert or the canals. and no more repeat offenders. I often call it Iraqi Progressive Policing. ;)
If I recall correctly, the guy (or a fictional analogue) ends up being a significant character in Martin McPhillips’ Corpse in Armor, an enjoyable thriller from an unusual angle.
I trust this man to tell us the truth about 9/11.