World Bank Pledges `Expeditious' Ruling on Wolfowitz

[Dialectic]

Corruption continues at the highest levels of American governance. The neo-cons tied to the Bush administration are so extreme you'd think they were characters in a political satire movie, until you realize it's all true, and it's all some fraction of the total crap they've pulled.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ao67be79nJvs&refer=home

By James G. Neuger and Christopher Swann

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- World Bank directors pledged a speedy decision on President Paul Wolfowitz's fate after finding that Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms of a promotion and pay raise for a woman with whom he had an intimate relationship.

``The Ethics Committee, including its chairman, had not been involved in the discussions with the concerned staff member,'' the bank's executive directors said in a statement in Washington early today. The directors ``will move expeditiously to reach a conclusion on possible actions to take.''

Wolfowitz yesterday apologized for his role in promoting and arranging a salary increase for the staffer, Shaha Riza, and said he would accept whatever ``remedies'' are proposed by the international lender's board.

Calls of ``resign, resign'' resounded through the World Bank's atrium yesterday when Wolfowitz, 63, addressed employee representatives. Staff Association head Alison Cave said it was the first time the group had called for a bank president to go.

Wolfowitz sent a memo to the bank's personnel manager ``directing him to reach an agreement with the staff member and specifying in detail the terms and conditions,'' the directors' statement said.

Rumsfeld

Wolfowitz, an aide to then U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the runup to the Iraq war, was named to the World Bank post by President George W. Bush in 2005. Bush retains ``full confidence'' in the World Bank president, Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto said yesterday.

The probe of Riza's promotion is overshadowing the semi- annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Wolfowitz's press conference opening the meeting was dominated by the issue yesterday.

Riza's promotion came with a pay increase that was more than double the amount allowed by staff rules, according the Staff Association. She later received an annual increase of 7.5 percent, also larger than rules allow.

Riza, 52, couldn't be reached for comment yesterday.

``I made a mistake, for which I am sorry,'' Wolfowitz said yesterday. He acknowledged the need to reorganize his personal office, where aides have been criticized for a lack of expertise in development economics and for ties to the Republican Party.

World Bank directors ``will focus on all relevant governance implications'' when addressing the case, today's statement said.

Discord

Wolfowitz's tenure was already marked by discord. He raised hackles among staff members over plans to beef up the bank's presence in Baghdad, and his drive to fight corruption among the bank's borrowers prompted concern that aid intended to help the poor might be halted.

The World Bank was founded in 1944 to provide financing for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, and it has since changed its mission to focus on fighting poverty. It lends about $23 billion a year.

The bank's president is nominated by the White House for a five-year term and must be a U.S. citizen. The IMF's managing director, currently former Spanish Finance Minister Rodrigo de Rato, has always been a European.

To contact the reporters on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net ; Christopher Swann in Washington at cswann1@bloomberg.net

[badwill]

The World Bank, IMF, WTO all of the same crap with different name.

[LaiSteve66]

Neo-cons need to be shot. 'nuff said.

[Dialectic]

Great little follow-up from Salon:

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/04/13/wolfowitz/index.html

The comic tragedy of Paul Wolfowitz's many trials

Aeschylus would have had a lot of fun with the drama swirling around Paul Wolfowitz, current president of the World Bank. As if it wasn't already enough that the war Wolfowitz played a primary role in designing has destroyed the Bush presidency and handed Congress to the Democrats, the man is now in danger of being forced to resign because of accusations that boil down to clear and obvious nepotism. New revelations from the Financial Times indicate convincingly that in contravention of bank rules, Wolfowitz personally arranged for his girlfriend and fellow World Bank employee Shaha Riza to get a plum State Department job that pays her a salary higher than Condoleezza Rice receives. This, from a man who has made a crusade against corruption in developing nations one of the central goals of his World Bank tenure! Hubris, thy name is Wolfowitz. Watching the flames mount on his pyre, one cannot avoid the feeling that the neocon House of Atreus has finally fallen.

The Financial Times, not known for its rabble-rousing instincts, is calling for his immediate resignation. (The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, continues to defend him, demonstrating yet again which publication is the real grown-up in the world of business journalism.) You simply cannot demand more "transparency" from African governments, and then refuse to deliver it yourself. But the girlfriend caper, as embarrassing as it is, isn't the real reason Wolfowitz should be looking for a new job.

Wolfowitz is also under fire because one of his appointments to the World Bank, Juan Jose Daboub, a former minister of finance from El Salvador, has been accused of ordering that all references to "family planning" be removed from a strategic aid plan for the country of Madagascar. Denials are flying, but the evidence trail seems pretty clear. Daboub is a prominent member of El Salavador's right wing ARENA party, which itself is closely affiliated with the Catholic Church. Contraception, in other words, is a no-no.

Upon reflection, maybe Aristophanes, the author of "Lysistrata," would be a better choice for chronicling Wolfowitz's woes than Aeschylus. In "Lysistrata," the women of Athens decide to deny their men all "sexual favors" until they stop fighting a disastrous war against Sparta. And sex, of course, is what the Wolfowitz story is all about. Bush administration dogma declares that the citizens of developing nations who want to get AIDS drugs and money for development must stop having sex. Meanwhile, the girlfriend of the World Bank president gets amply provided for.

As a last note, much credit is due to the Washington-based whistle-blowing organization, the Government Accountability Project, which appears to have played a key role in breaking both the family planning scandal and the Shaha Riza mess. The Greeks had a word for people like that, too. They called them "heroes."

[nskripchun]

The guy totally screws up the reconstruction of Iraq, and now this? You'd think he'd do a better job of keeping his nose clean after all manner of folks still pissed over that, but the guy is obviously corrupt AND arrogant enough to screw things up TWICE.

GG Wolfowitz. n00b.