NYPD Intelligence Division Head Disrespects FBI Counter-Terrorism Head

A clash of egos prevents the head of the New York Police Department's Intelligence Division--former longtime CIA officer David Cohen, from listening to the views of the New York Joint Terrorist Task Force, which includes the FBI.

Cohen apparently has a problem with FBI counter-terrorism chief Chuck Frahm, according to reports over the weekend in the New York Post and the New York Times.

Both reports are helpfully republished together at Cryptome.

One of the nation's foremost al Qaeda experts abruptly quit his new NYPD post because Commissioner Ray Kelly's top anti-terror intelligence czar launched into a foulmouthed tirade against the FBI - where the lawman had spent his career, The Post has learned. The stunning incident involving renowned former FBI agent Daniel Coleman - considered the bureau's pre-eminent authority on Osama bin Laden - came just days before he was scheduled to formally start working at the NYPD. Sources said Coleman was attending a morning briefing session at Police Headquarters at the invitation of Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen and Deputy Commissioner of Counter-Terrorism Michael Sheehan, the two honchos who had lured him to join the NYPD's expanding global anti-terror empire.

Coleman, a 32-year FBI veteran known at the bureau as "The Professor," took his seat at the conference table along with Cohen, Sheehan and several others, including a current official of the CIA, where Cohen had worked for three decades. The meeting barely started, sources say, when Cohen and Sheehan started to discuss the NYPD's anti-terror initiatives and plans. The discussion prompted Coleman to innocently ask Cohen whether he had spoken with the department's detectives on the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force who had global contacts. Cohen responded with derision and swear words, saying at first he didn't want to talk with the 150 NYPD detectives because he did not want to deal with the FBI's terror division chief, Chuck Frahm, whom he cursed out.

Coleman suggested Cohen needn't attack people personally, and that Frahm was a friend and former colleague. Then Cohen really erupted, broadening his assault to include the entire bureau - railing about the "'f---ing bureau' this and the 'f---ing bureau' that, and going on about how the FBI was always withholding information," a source said. Cohen was essentially saying, "F--- the FBI, we do what we want!" the source added. After listening to the brutal diatribe, Coleman pushed his chair away from the table, calmly stood up and announced that he was resigning - before he ever technically started - and walked out.

The basis of (former DDO) Mr. Cohen's low opinion of the FBI counter terror head is unknown, but may be a lingering aftereffect of the traditional view within the CIA of the FBI as not being up to the job of dealing with international matters.

Mr. Cohen's title within the NYPD is Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence (DCI).

LOL.