Bush Names New Security Chief

The US president, George Bush, today formally named former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik as the new US homeland security secretary.

Mr Kerik, who more recently was involved in developing Iraq's new police force, is the replacement for Tom Ridge, who announced his resignation earlier this week.

At a White House ceremony, Mr Bush praised Mr Kerik as "one of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America".

He is a former military policeman who was police commissioner in New York during the September 11 2001 attacks. He helped to rally a department that lost 23 members and became a steady presence for a population deeply shaken by the attacks.

Mr Bush said Mr Kerik was on the scene of the World Trade Centre attacks minutes after the first hijacked plane hit, was there when the towers fell and went to the funerals of the officers who were lost.

Mr Kerik said what he witnessed in the days after the attacks would be etched in his mind. "I know what is at stake," he said, "both the memory of those courageous souls and the horrors I saw inflicted upon our proud nation will serve as permanent reminders of the awesome responsibility you place in my charge."

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was Mr Kerik's boss, said the former undercover detective will surprise many within the huge department of homeland security.

"When you see him, he's a big strong guy and a black belt," Mr Giuliani told the Associated Press. "What you get to know when you work with him is how smart he is ... how effective and sophisticated a manager he is."

Representative Christopher Cox, a Republican from California, chairman of the house homeland security committee, said: "There is no doubt that Bernie is a strong, no-nonsense manager who is intimately familiar with the homeland security mission".

A military policeman in South Korea in the 1970s, Mr Kerik's first anti-terrorism work was as a paid private security worker in Saudi Arabia. He joined the New York Police department in 1986, first walking a beat in Times Square when it was still a haven for small-time hustlers.

He eventually was chosen to lead the city's corrections department, and was appointed police commissioner in 2000. It was in that position that he became known to the rest of the country, supervising the police response to September 11.

Mr Kerik inherits a new and sprawling bureaucracy. The creation of the department in 2003 combined 22 disparate federal agencies with more than 180,000 employees and a combined multibillion dollar budget.