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Sanchez: Kerik Was Focused on Busting Baghdad Whorehouses
More score settling. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez opens fire on Bernie Kerik's time training the Iraqi police in Iraq:
"He is a very energetic guy. He is very confident - overconfident to an extent - and he is very superficial in his understanding of the requirements of his job," Sanchez said. "His whole contribution was a waste of time and effort."...Sanchez said Kerik focused more on "conducting raids and liberating prostitutes" than training the Iraqis.
"They'd get tips and they'd go and actually raid a whorehouse," Sanchez told The News. "Their focus becomes trying to do tactical police operations in the city of Baghdad, when in fact there is a much greater mission that they should be doing, which is training the police."...
Kerik denied arresting any prostitutes in Iraq and said the Army always knew about his operations.
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Josh
Zachary
It seems no one understood the sarcasm in Sanchez's statement. What he meant was Kerik spent a lot of time chasing the Pro's in Baghdad to test their skills, not arrest them.
May 5, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. The Army always knew about "his operations."
May 5, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kerik is a poster boy for unqualified, low-life Republicans who, through dilligent boot-licking, obtained govt. positions of responsibility. And who would have guessed, a whore-monger as well! He must have been trying to spread right-wing family values.
May 5, 2008 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
a whore-monger
OT:How come a fishmonger (cf. "Molly Malone") sells but a whore-monger buys?
May 5, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
He has "connections", and someone just as sleazy as he is will hire him because of that. That's the way the system works - right on up to the mayor's office and into the Oval Office.
If the playing field was level these guys would be nothings and nobodys; right on up to the mayor's office - and into the Oval Office.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
May 5, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
It isn't news that Kerik did very little down in Iraq. The book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" details how he spent many of his nights going on raids and many of his days catching up on his sleep.
The new news is that some of his raids were prostitution rings.
May 5, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This guy was almost the Homeland Security head honcho. Good lord.
May 5, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
30 Rock just had Jack Donaghy (the fictional executive in charge of programming at NBC and GE honcho) named to a high Homeland Security post. He lost his position to someone who can't even open a door, so rather than submit to ignominy with a lower job with NBC/GE, he took the Bush appointment. Don't know if Kerik is anything like the Donaghy character, but it says a lot about what Tina Fey thinks of Homeland Security as it now stands.
May 5, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
**Dude just loved his job. (Is he an example of Republican "vetting?")
May 5, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shorter Kerik: Dude! Where's my ho?
May 5, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Spitzer would have done a better job . . .
May 5, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Holy Double With Special Batman! Hookers!!!
Robin, get my dildo belt! And get Vitter on the phone! Oh wait, he's coming out the back door now...
May 5, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Liberating" prostitutes -- nice euphemism.
Come to think of it, that's what we did when we "liberated" Iraq -- fucked it up.
May 5, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a former Army staff officer, I always felt uncomfortable about the manner in which General Sanchez communicated, and with the swagger he displayed while in theater. Clearly, he was not my kind of commander, and I find his disclosures rather disingenuous to say the least.
He is also irreparably damaged by his direct ties to the reprehensible conduct at Abu Ghraib and to its ensuing cover up. While it is interesting to hear him offer his observations, he has—or should have—little or no credibility. General Sanchez was then, as he is now, a part of the problem - not a part of the solution.
May 5, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sanchez said Kerik focused more on "conducting raids and liberating prostitutes" than training the Iraqis.
Mixing business and pleasure?
May 5, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, the prostitutes raided were those which were not in houses operated by Kerik - getting rid of the competition.
May 6, 2008 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody who knows anything about Kerik knows that his mother (this isn't a smear of the guy, it's just true) was actually a prostitute.
May 5, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
cue Dennis Hopper with gas mask in "Blue Velvet":
"Mommy, mommy!"
May 5, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
In response to Michael Lafferty above, thanks for your service and thanks for your reminder about Abu Ghraib and Sanchez.
If the past almost eight years should have taught us anything, it's just how corrupt Washington is, including the Pentagon.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
May 5, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not ex-Army, but ditto on what Mr. Lafferty says above. Kerik was incompetent and bad news, but the damage done by "liberating" prostitutes instead of training police (Kerik's been gone a LONG time now, far too long for the CONTINUING failures of "training" for police and Iraqi military to lay at any one door) anyway, the damange done from that is far less than the damage done to Iraq as a nation, American soliders, America as a nation and countless Iraqi civilians by the actions of commanders like Sanchez over the many years we have been in Iraq.
May 5, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did Kerik have his own version of the "Bikini Inspector" t-shirt?
May 5, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it's just me, but it sure would be nice if the President of the United States of America would hire the best and brightest that America has to offer to "bring Osama bin Laden to justice."
Instead, we get this: Absolute and total incompetents hiring absolute and total incompetents to do... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
May 6, 2008 5:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
the best and brightest that America has to offer to "bring Osama bin Laden to justice."
Our team is not well-captained...
May 6, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do not find it curious that some are attacking Gen. Sanchez. This is the era of denigration. But when talking of Kerik, let's explore something else other than his penchant for whores.
I seem to remember a recent article connecting one of the alphabet soup companies with prostitution and the sex trade. Have I got my tinfoil hat on or is it quite possible that Kerik was muscle for that company? Was He there to clean out the competition?
Knowing what there is to know about Kerik and just what sort of prics these govt contractors can be; I just think that Kerik was in Iraq for a purpose. That was not to train the police.
footsore
May 6, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Kerik was primarily in it for the sex. And under the circumstances detailed, that would make him a rapist, becuase he certainly wasn't about paying for it.
Or is that an unnecessary clarification of the meaning of "Republican"?
May 6, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink