Judge Tapped For Homeland Post

[David]

AP


President Bush has chosen federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to be his new Homeland Security chief, turning to a former federal prosecutor who helped craft the early war on terror strategy.

Chertoff headed the Justice Department's criminal division from 2001 to 2003, where he played a central role in the nation's legal response to the Sept. 11 attacks, before the president named him to appeals court position in New Jersey.

The announcement came a month and a day after Mr. Bush's first choice - former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik - asked the president to withdraw his name from consideration.

An avalanche of bad publicity that included reports of questionable business dealings and extramarital affairs forced Kerik out of the running.

The president said he was confident Chertoff would be "a strong, effective leader." The president also praised outgoing Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge.

Chertoff said he was "deeply honored" to be nominated, and that it would be a privilege to serve with the men and women who "stand watch" across the country and overseas, protecting U.S. security.

The Chertoff selection rounds out Mr. Bush's second-term Cabinet.

Chertoff, whose resume includes stints as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey and the Senate Republicans' chief counsel for the Clinton-era Whitewater investigation, was one of the administration's key figures in the war on terror.

He took the lead in 2003 in successfully arguing the government's case in a potentially precedent-setting appeal involving terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, the lone man charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks and playing a significant role in development of the U.S. Patriot Act to combat terrorist attacks.

As a federal prosecutor in New Jersey from 1990 to 1994, Chertoff oversaw high-profile prosecutions of Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann, New York chief judge Sol Wachtler and the kidnappers and killers of Exxon executive Sidney Reso.

He also worked in Trenton as special counsel to the state Senate Judiciary Committee that investigated racial profiling in New Jersey.

The choice of a new homeland security chief completes a substantial makeover of the Bush team as the president awaits his swearing-in Jan. 20 for a new term.

Donald H. Rumsfeld, John Snow and Norman Mineta have remained as secretaries of defense, treasury and transportation, but Bush has changed most other key agency positions.

He turned to close associates Margaret Spellings and Alberto Gonzales for the positions of secretary of education and attorney general and chose his first-term national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to be secretary of state.

Congress has started the process of confirmation hearings, and Gonzales appeared last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democrats quizzed him aggressively about his role in the writing of an administrations policy paper interpreting what kinds of interrogations of enemy combatants could be permitted under a 1994 law banning torture.

Rice has her initial confirmation hearing on Jan. 18, two days before Bush's inauguration.





Chertoff and President Bush