Another Neocon Bites The Dust

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:00:39 GMT, PaPaPeng <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

World Bank board debates Wolfowitz's fate


Richard Adams in Washington
Friday April 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2056501,00.html

More dope. The fundamental lesson is always be nice to everybody. It
costs nothing and people will like you. Then when you stumble they
will try their best to help you get up again. Bush and his neocons
have alienatede just about everyone in the world and much of their own
people too. The knives are out. Et tu Dubya.

---- ---- --- --- --- --- --- ---


Wolfowitz fights for his job amid nepotism scandal


· World Bank chief sorry for role in partner's pay rise
· Board to decide future after internal investigation

Larry Elliott in Washington
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2056353,00.html
Paul Wolfowitz was last night battling to save his job as president of
the World Bank after admitting he had blundered over the handling of a
promotion and pay rise for his partner, Shaha Riza.
After a series of revelations about the way he arranged for Ms Riza to
be seconded to the State Department and receive pay rises totalling
$61,000 (£31,000), Mr Wolfowitz's future was being discussed by the
bank's 24-strong board.
It was thought unlikely the board would take the unprecedented step of
sacking the bank's president, but Mr Wolfowitz's public apology was
seen in Washington as an indication of the serious damage the row has
caused to his reputation.
Under Mr Wolfowitz, a leading architect of the Iraq war appointed to
the World Bank two years ago, the bank has sought to make the fight
against corruption the central plank of its work, and at a press
conference to launch the spring meetings of the bank in Washington
this weekend he was asked whether he now had enough credibility to
continue such a campaign.
Mr Wolfowitz pleaded for understanding for his "painful personal
dilemma" and sought to divert attention by focusing on the need to
raise aid levels to the developing world. However, he faced repeated
questions about his integrity. The controversy erupted last week when
the bank's staff association questioned the treatment of Ms Riza.
The board has since been investigating Ms Riza's secondment, amid
allegations that Mr Wolfowitz personally directed the head of human
resources to offer a generous pay rise and promotion. The bank's staff
association called for all the papers relating to the case to be made
public.
Mr Wolfowitz said he had acted after taking advice from the bank's
ethics committee, and made it clear that he was not planning to
resign. "I made a good faith effort to implement my understanding of
that advice, and it was done in order to take responsibility for
settling an issue that I believed had potential to harm the
institution ... In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original
instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations."
Mr Wolfowitz joined the bank in mid-2005 after serving as deputy
defence secretary at the Pentagon, but as one of the chief architects
of the Bush administration's war strategy in Iraq his appointment was
controversial from the outset.
Britain's development secretary, Hilary Benn, has been critical of Mr
Wolfowitz's focus on corruption and last year threatened to withhold
$50m in UK funding.

World Bank
________________________________________
Wolfowitz on the ropes


Leader
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2056195,00.html
For an organisation meant to serve the poor, the World Bank looks
embarrassingly wealthy, in a huge concrete and glass building just
three blocks from the White House. The problem, according to the
bank's critics, is that all this shapes the way it behaves. This
weekend the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund
and the bank in Washington will raise a traditional litany of
complaints. It is too bureaucratic and centralised, critics say; too
insistent that poor borrower countries follow its instructions.
Politically too, they complain, the bank is in Capitol Hill's shadow.

Many of these arguments are accepted by the organisation's own staff;
others simply reflect a yearning for the perfect over the good. The
two giants of multilateral development - the IMF as a last resort in
financial crisis and the World Bank as an engine of development - have
made attempts to improve since they were set up in Bretton Woods. Next
month marks the 60th anniversary of the bank's first loan. Then the
borrower was France; now it is more likely to be Malawi.
But the critics' job has become simpler since Paul Wolfowitz was
appointed as the bank's president in 2005. The charge that the world's
second-largest development organisation is under America's thumb could
hardly be better supported than by the appointment of one of President
Bush's closest advisers, a man who helped bring about the Iraq war.
And all those who suggested that the bank was about to become the
development arm of the Pentagon have had plenty of material ever
since. Mr Wolfowitz hired as his gatekeepers Kevin Kellems and Robin
Cleveland, two people also linked to Iraq. On top of that, he has
poured funds into Afghanistan and Iraq. He even set up a permanent
office in Baghdad, not staffed by the World Bank since the bombing of
the UN office there. Others allege that Mr Wolfowitz's campaign
against corruption, which has led to the bank withholding funds from
some borrower countries, is a more insidious version of the neocon
drive to spread democracy.
Yet a press conference at the bank yesterday presented the astonishing
sight of Mr Wolfowitz, the great propagator of good governance, having
to defend his own record. He began the meeting, normally an affair of
limited appeal to non-economists, with a personal statement
apologising for his role in getting his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a
secondment to the Bush administration. Not only does she remain on the
bank's payroll, but she is on a salary well above her former
colleagues. The embattled Mr Wolfowitz spent much of the rest of the
conference fending off questions about his possible resignation.
Tellingly, he left them unanswered.
Most of the facts of this story have been known for months. But
details of Ms Riza's pay, which have emerged recently, have made Mr
Wolfowitz's position particularly shaky. All this will have cheered up
his critics, and those of the bank. It also lends great force to their
calls for reform. After all, if the process of appointing the bank's
head was more transparent it is very unlikely that Mr Wolfowitz would
have got the job.
But any reform needs to go much wider. What matters is not just who
heads the World Bank, but what the institution does. Few doubt that
the bank is necessary, and even in its current form it does good, as
well as harm. Hilary Benn, the development secretary, said as much
yesterday in a speech arguing that the bank must stop being so
heavy-handed with its borrowers. He set out the case for a green World
Bank, one that finds a new purpose in responding to climate change.
But for such things to happen the bank's structure must be reformed.
At the moment the UK has a larger share of votes in the organisation
than 22 African countries combined, and the US can block any change.
While that is the case, some critics will go on suggesting that the
World Bank is really an imperial one.
Comments

gulfbridge
April 13, 2007 2:53 AM
In the late 80s, I had some dealings with the World Bank. At the time
the staff were in revolt against a number of measures that were being
pushed through at the behest of the US government.
The thing that upset staff most was the direction that they were in
future to fly business class, rather than first class, when travelling
around the world on Bank business. This was seen as an onerous demand
from the Board of the Bank and the staff fought it tooth and nail. It
would not surprise me if they won the fight and retained their first
class privileges.
After all, how can you empathise fully with the poor and wretched of
the world unless you are flying first class?
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davric
April 13, 2007 4:28 AM
I was Team Leader on a project in Trinidad and Tobago funded by the
World Bank (I'd been brought in by the Swedish government agency I
worked for). We delivered on time, well within budget and to the
entire satisfaction of the Trinidadian organisation we were working
with … so that was the last time we were asked to participate in
anything!
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kivalur
April 13, 2007 5:01 AM
Ah the irony!!
Not so long ago some in the US administration and senate were carrying
out a frenzied attack on corruption in the UN, attempting to crucify
Kofi Annan and generally questioning the integrity of the UN as a
whole.
Can America go any lower?
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ZionismKills
April 13, 2007 6:06 AM
************************************************
Wolfowitz should be in the dock as a war criminal for the suffering he
has caused to be inflicted on the Iraqi people, for aiding the launch
of an unprovoked war of aggression that has already killed 100's of
thousands.
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ture
April 13, 2007 6:16 AM
The woman was only payed a taxfree salary of 193,000$ a year to sleep
with Wolfowitz. Considering that this is the ugly little war criminal
who spits in his hair and wear socks with his toes sticking out I
think it is a good deal for the bank. Prostitutes would have been much
more expensive.
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RogerINtheUSA
April 13, 2007 6:39 AM
kivalur
April 13, 2007 5:01 AM
Ah the irony!!
Not so long ago some in the US administration and senate were carrying
out a frenzied attack on corruption in the UN, attempting to crucify
Kofi Annan and generally questioning the integrity of the UN as a
whole.
Can America go any lower?
hi kivalur
Yes. We could elect another Republican president.
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Usani
April 13, 2007 8:09 AM
"...The world bank is really an imperial one". The word 'imperial' is
a euphemism of the word 'imperialist'.Here is the alternative
formulation: The world bank is really an 'imperialist' one.
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DavidD
April 13, 2007 8:25 AM
Not entirely sure that is true about the US being able to block any
vote at the level of the governor's board.
I think voting power is in direct proportion to monetary
contributions, which means that the US has about 16 per cent of the
vote and can be outvoted by other large contributors working together:
say, Japan, UK, France, Germany.
This also explains why African countries have so little power as they
are not large contributors.
If you want to read an excellent article about Wolfowitz, go read
Cassidy's "The Next Crusade" Article in the New Yorker.
By the way, much of the criticism revolves around Wolfowitz's arbitary
decisions to cut funding for impoverished countries who fail to
develop good governance.
While corruption is a massive issue in many parts of the world, one
step to solving this issue is to develop and enhance a free press and
open media environment capable of investigating corruption.

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brux
April 13, 2007 8:49 AM
This clown has to go, if only because he feeds each and every
anti-semitic stereotype. Can't the Jewish lobby in Washington make a
single decent move anymore?
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Khusro
April 13, 2007 9:04 AM
Mr Wolfwitz, the world's premier spokesman and guardian when it comes
to good governance, caught with his hands in the till....
This truly, is darker than the heart of darkness!!
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romans
April 13, 2007 9:11 AM
Replace the word "imperialist" with "imperilist" and one can imagine
the dangers of someone with such political ties to the White House at
the head of the World Bank (apart from being physically located so
close which is why it is there anyway). If a person who is willing to
participate in the invasions of Iraq and Afganistan under a pretext
and then continue to kill innocent people expects to be trusted to be
head of an important organisation he is being blase. The reliance of
the USofA on Middle East oil is being continued to be masked by the
imposition of 'democracy' which is what that government regularly
quotes when they invade a country. We have seen many times the deceit
of that country that invades country under this pretext and through
Wolfowitz this will be another avenue of securing oil supplies to the
nation and thus their oil families will continue to make greed.
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magnolia
April 13, 2007 9:57 AM
Let's start at the begining. This girlfriend......what is she paid and
for what job. Is it an approriate salary for the post. Is she
qualified. Does she perform her duties efficiently and with success.
No one seems arsed about these dealing with these salient points and
why would they be? For here is yet another chance to berate America
and even better than that, berate Ameican Jews and even super better
than that, American Jews who are powerful and wealthy. Oh happy day.
Pathetic.
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bass46
April 13, 2007 10:19 AM
Magnolia,
A quick search has revealed....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501935.html?nav=hcmodule
"Riza, a senior communications officer for the Middle East and North
Africa region, was promoted to a higher-paying position on Sept. 19,
2005, the day she left for Foggy Bottom, without any of the required
open competition for the job, the association said. She also got a pay
raise more than double the amount allowed by the rules, the e-mail
said, followed by another allegedly overly large raise.
Before these bumps up, Riza had been earning $132,660. She's now paid
$193,590. (Correction: We said last week that this figure was about
$7,000 a year more than what is paid to Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, for whom Riza now works. That now appears to be very misleading.
Riza's reported pay is net, we're told, and Rice's is gross. So Riza
takes home a whole lot more than Rice. We regret the error.)"
As you say... pathetic.
Has anyone mentioned Jews around here? What has any of this got to do
with religion? If a Jew happens to be corrupt, should we not say so,
or are no Jews corrupt and all accusations simply religious insults?
Why did you bring it up?
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butterfield
April 13, 2007 10:26 AM
Wolfowits is a confirmed jerk who can't be rehabilitated. Institutions
are incapable of rehabilitating or controlling their bosses. That's
why only the best should be selected for such positions. If they don't
continually show that they are the best in every aspect, the only
answer is to show them the door.

.