Christopher Dickey is an award-winning author and Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek Magazine. His most recent book, Securing the City, was published in February 2009. Mr. Dickey’s Shadowland column, about counter-terrorism, espionage and the Middle East, appears weekly on Newsweek Online. His newest book is a rare inside look at the NYPD’s elite counter-terrorism force that took shape after 9/11 and has been keeping New York safe ever since.
I talked with Mr. Dickey from his home in Paris about his book earlier this year.
What inspired you to write “Securing the City”?
“I spent a lot of time covering Iran and the Iraq war. I was interested in covering terrorism from a different perspective. As I looked around I found that the NYPD (New York Police Department) was unusual. The caliber of intelligence, counter-intelligence and law enforcement looked to be unusual. I wanted to look at a different paradigm in fighting terrorism. NYPD Intel Chief David Cohen told me that there’s a plot out there every day to attack New York City—this led to the inspiration for the book. New York City is the most target-rich environment for terrorists.”
You were given unusual access to the NYPD’s counterterrorism force for your book. How did you connect with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly?
“I had met Ray Kelly (NYPD Police Commissioner) in the private sector and was hoping to get good access in the Treasury Department; we stayed in touch. Kelly was looking at the feds. When he retired he was working at Bear Stearns and when 9/11 happened he realized he couldn’t rely on the federal government.”
How did you approach writing about terrorism from a new angle?
“The problem was to find an alternative to the militarized War on Terror which to me was never a good idea. What interested me about the NYPD was it didn’t deal with terrorist threats and who terrorists are [it deals with preventing terrorist attacks].”
What has the NYPD demonstrated about fighting terrorism at a local level?
“I don’t think people were focused on the idea that people can and should focus on what their police force can do to fight terrorism. One of the reasons the NYPD can do what they do is they’re a huge organization. They have 35,000 sworn police officers. San Francisco has 2,000 police. The LAPD has 10,000 officers. You’re looking at a municipal force when looking at the NYPD. It is sort of striking for people, [especially if they live in New York].”
How successful have they been so far?
“There’s a lot to be learned. Some of it is procedural—moving from prosecutorial to prevention. There a lot of things it can do that the federal government just wouldn’t do.”
How is the NYPD’s terrorism fighting force divided?
“There are two different branches of the NYPD [that fight terrorism]. One is the counter-terrorism bureau, which includes the counter-terrorism division (Richard Falkenrath is Director). The other is the intelligence division, which has raised some constitutional challenges (David Cohen, former CIA, is Director).”
How are things playing out in the courts with these foiled terrorists?
“There’s this long list of huge battles in the courts of law and of trying to take action. The FBI was badly burned in the Watergate era. Basically they have been very unsuccessful in getting convictions because there are all kinds of constitutional violations. The NYPD said—Cohen said, Kelly said—we are going to be careful, but we are going to penetrate groups that we feel may be a threat. This is a very grey area.”
Why are cities heavily populated with immigrants—like New York—relatively safe?
“Immigrants are a strength because they come to build lives and come to build the country. The NYPD doesn’t ask immigrant their status because you can’t have someone who is afraid of the police and then recruit informants [from immigrant communities]. CIA analysts have said that a big part of what goes on in the U.S. is the ‘American dream’. So the safest big cities in the U.S. are those with the highest number of first generation immigrants.”
What is the relationship between the FBI and the NYPD like?
“The FBI is constantly complaining about what the NYPD does. You hear from FBI guys in the trenches that the NYPD is overstepping the bounds, but when you ask for a specific example you can’t get an answer. The FBI can’t give specifics—on and off the record. What you get is allegations. Generalized allegations, and [Commissioner] Kelly is very sensitive to that.”
Why the rivalry or friction between the FBI and the NYPD?
“Part of it is probably jealousy. The New York Police Department answers to one man: Ray Kelly. And he answers to one man: the mayor. The federal side answers to all of congress.”
It seems Kelly has been effective preventing terrorism in his role. Why is that?
“Because Kelly came in January, 2002 in the wake of 9/11, he did two or three vital things. He said our mission is prevention, not prosecution. The Intelligence Division is exempt from COMSTADT. The second thing is the diversity of New York City could be a problem, or it could be an advantage because of the immigrant population. When Kelly came back (he was police commissioner for a period prior to 9/11) he said, ‘Let’s use people who speak the language’—Arabic, Urdu, Farsi—at a time when the federal government was desperate for anyone who spoke the language adequately.”
Why hasn’t the federal government made as much use of the immigrant community in the U.S. as the NYPD?
“The feds are terrified of moles and want to check your childhood background and cannot do it if you’re from Karachi (Pakistan). The federal government won’t give clearance to someone who is born in Karachi, but the NYPD does.”
How did the NYPD mine the immigrant community in New York for those who could work counterterrorism?
“The NYPD, after a couple of months testing volunteers, they found 700 people. They can walk the beat or work intel…go into Al Qaeda chat rooms, which they do. Forty percent of New York residents were not born in America. They stay in touch with their homes. You can probably find out more about what’s happening in Yemen today in Brooklyn than you can in Aden (port city in Yemen).”
There is always the danger of budget and personnel cuts in New York’s police force, especially in the current economy. How could that affect the NYPD’s counterterrorism work?
“Crime can increase in hard times. If crime starts to go up, the ability to fight terrorism goes down. You can talk about the theory of policing, but without the boots on the ground, what can you do?”
