Homeland Security former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik

NEWSWEEK: If Confirmed as Head of Department of Homeland Security, Kerik Will Face Manifold Problems

Low Morale at Formerly Elite Customs Units Since Merging With Low-Budget Immigration Office; Agents Complain They Can't Get Gas for Cars to Go On Stakeouts

NEW YORK, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- If former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik is confirmed as the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, he will have a hard time figuring out where to begin to fix the manifold problems of the DHS, Newsweek reports in the current issue. Morale is at rock bottom at some formerly elite units like Customs, whose undercover operatives were once highly effective at cracking arms smuggling and drug rings at home and abroad. The reason: they were merged with the chaotic and low-budget Immigration
offices. Customs agents complain they can't get gas for the cars to go on stakeouts, report Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and Investigative Correspondent Mark Hosenball in the December 13 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, December 6).

Kerik has been known to make up his own rules. While he was police commissioner, the NYPD bought four $50,000 security doors for police headquarters. They turned out to be too heavy for the floor to support. One of them was used by the Department of Corrections, and the other three are in storage. A police department investigation found irregularities in the bidding process. Kerik later became an adviser to a company distributing the doors, though he renounced his deal after the door-maker's president was indicted for defrauding the city, Newsweek reports. In a separate case, Kerik was later reprimanded and required to pay a $2,500 fine for using city cops to help
research his memoir.

Kerik's earlier ethical scrapes could face close scrutiny when he comes up for Senate confirmation this winter. A White House spokesman tells Newsweek that Kerik has been "thoroughly vetted," and he has strong Democratic backers in New York senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. The New Yorkers are hoping that Kerik will reverse the flow of Homeland Security dollars, which,
at least in the early going, disproportionately favored rural states at low risk of attack like Alaska.

Still, Kerik will have to be uncharacteristically diplomatic with his various congressional masters, as the DHS reports to 88 different congressional committees. "You try telling 60 senators from rural states that they're no longer going to get as much money as they were getting," a DHS
official tells Newsweek in the current issue. "That's suicide."

SOURCE Newsweek
msnbc.msn.com/id/6653374/site/newsweek