-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: April 17, 2007 12:44:12 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Crying Wolfowitz
WHY BUSH SHOULD LET A DAMAGED WOLFOWITZ GO:
"TO PLACE LOYALTY ABOVE ALL OTHER VIRTUES IS THE ETHICS
OF A MAFIA BOSS, NOT OF THE LEADER OF A GREAT COUNTRY"
Financial Times (UK), April 13 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0df59e26-e9f3-11db-91c7-000b5df10621.html
Should Paul Wolfowitz leave the World Bank? The answer to that
question is “yes”. Will Mr Wolfowitz leave the World Bank? The
answer to that question is murkier. The US put Mr Wolfowitz in his
job and the US will decide whether he is to stay. George W.?Bush
will hate to abandon a loyal henchman. He should do so, none the less.
It would be absurd to leave the decision to the bank’s executive
directors. True, they promised yesterday to “move expeditiously to
reach a conclusion on possible actions to take”. If the board did
indeed exercise effective oversight, it would be welcome. But it
would also be most surprising. These mid-level bureaucrats are not
going to reach such a decision on their own.
In practice, national capitals will make the choice, unless Mr
Wolfowitz himself takes it out of their hands. The US will be
decisive: it is the bank’s largest shareholder; it has always
appointed the bank’s president; and the president himself chose Mr
Wolfowitz.
Who would want to take the US on if it decided to defend Mr
Wolfowitz to the bitter end? However unhappy they may be with him,
the other high- income countries are unlikely to want a big fight
with the US over what most governments would consider a relatively
unimportant matter. Many developing country members may even find
the presidency of a now de-fanged anti-corruption campaigner quite
appealing.
Mr Bush tends to be loyal to those he regards as loyal to himself.
It is not surprising, therefore, to hear Tony Fratto, a White House
spokesman, declare that Mr Wolfowitz continues to have “our full
confidence”. That then would seem to be the end of the matter: Mr
Wolfowitz will survive because the US president has decided he should.
Yet this ought not to be the end of the matter. To place loyalty
above all other virtues is the ethics of a mafia boss, not of the
leader of a great country. The US president also needs to consider
what is both right and in the interests of his own country.
That the US has in recent years lost a great deal of moral credit
around the world is undeniable. But one area where the present
administration has been relatively forward-looking has been aid and
development. It has raised the share of gross domestic product
spent on official aid to a still low 0.17 per cent, but that is
well above the mere 0.1 per cent in 1999. It has supported
ambitious debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries. It
has also, rightly, put much weight on the need to tackle corruption
and improve governance in aid recipients.
The best justification for placing Mr Wolfowitz at the bank was his
determination to give this last objective overriding priority. It
is possible to debate the wisdom of this, since the quality of
governance, albeit hugely important, is not the sole determinant of
development. But one point nobody can debate: if the US has decided
that this is what it wants the World Bank to achieve, it cannot
sustain a president who is no longer a credible spokesman for that
cause. To do so can only destroy yet more of its own battered moral
capital. It would be worse than a crime; it would be a blunder.
Loyalty is indeed a virtue. But loyalty is not the overriding
virtue. The US needs to perceive its true interests in having an
effective and credible bank. It needs also to preserve its own
credibility as a campaigner for good governance. Mr Wolfowitz now
needs to go if the aim of his presidency is to survive. The choice
for Mr Bush has become as simple and as stark as that.
---------
WORLD BANK HEAD SAYS
HE'S SORRY HE HELPED GIRLFRIEND GET HIGH-PAID JOB
Joel Havemann,
Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2007
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/13/
MNG9TP84TU1.DTL
(04-13) 04:00 PDT Washington -- His staff in open revolt, World
Bank President Paul Wolfowitz apologized Thursday for his role in
landing his girlfriend a job at the U.S. State Department that gave
her more than $60,000 a year in raises and a total salary greater
than that of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry," Wolfowitz told a news
conference in advance of the regular spring meetings of the bank
and the International Monetary Fund. He declined to answer
questions about how the new job and its pay had been arranged
beyond saying it had been done to avoid a potential conflict of
interest because of his position and the personal relationship.
Wolfowitz attempted to address about 200 staffers gathered in the
bank's central atrium but left after some began hissing, booing and
chanting: "Resign. ... Resign." He had approached the gathering
after holding a news conference in which he said, "I made a mistake
for which I am sorry."
Wolfowitz suggested that his critics might be motivated in part by
opposition to the role he played as an architect of President
Bush's Iraq war policy. Wolfowitz served as deputy secretary of
defense before taking over the World Bank in 2005.
The flap is the latest to ripple through the World Bank since
Wolfowitz became its president. He has alienated the bank's staff
with a management style that many regard as insular, surrounding
himself with a handful of longtime associates from earlier phases
of his career and shutting out the staff that he inherited.
Some bank staffers also complain that Wolfowitz intends to open a
World Bank office in Iraq to channel international aid to that
country, supplementing U.S. reconstruction aid.
The problem raised for Wolfowitz by the pay raises centers on what
he acknowledges is his romantic relationship with Shaha Ali Riza,
who was working for the bank when Wolfowitz assumed the presidency.
The bank's multinational board of directors met Thursday to
consider what to do about it but made no announcement afterward.
Asked at his news conference if he would consider resigning,
Wolfowitz said he would have nothing to say about the matter beyond
his prepared apology.
In his statement, Wolfowitz said that he realized he had a
potential conflict of interest when he went to the bank because of
his relationship with the Tunisian-born Riza, who is of Saudi and
Libyan descent but carries a British passport. He said he asked to
be recused from personnel considerations regarding Riza, but that
the bank's ethics committee advised him to promote and relocate her.
She was assigned to the State Department, where she initially
worked on the establishment of the Foundation for the Future, a
sort of World Bank for the Middle East and northern Africa financed
largely by contributions from the U.S. and European governments, as
well as rich countries from the region.
After a year, she was assigned to the foundation's staff.
Those negotiations resulted in an annual salary for Riza of
$180,000, up from the $132,600 she had been paid at the World Bank.
More recently she received another raise, to $193,590, jumping her
ahead of the secretary of state at $186,600.
"In hindsight," Wolfowitz said, "I wish I had trusted my original
instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations" over her
assignments and compensation.
Riza's salary was disclosed not by the World Bank but by a bank
employee who took it to the Government Accountability Project, a
whistle-blower protection group.
Particularly troubling to the bank's staff were reports that Riza,
while working at the bank, received fees paid by a U.S. military
contractor that was doing consulting work in Iraq.
"I know that if anyone else in the bank did this, he/she will be
dismissed immediately," said one of the 221 staff e-mails sent to
an internal Web site and made public by the Government
Accountability Project. Riza could not be reached for comment.
The bank's management responded to the leak and resulting tumult
among the staff by retaining a high-powered Washington law firm to
try to find the sources. Bea Edwards, international director of the
Government Accountability Project, said that even if Wolfowitz
hangs onto his job, he'll find it difficult to raise funds from the
bank's member nations, one of his major jobs.
-------------------
WOLFOWITZ'S FRIEND SAYS SHE'S THE VICTIM
By JEANNINE AVERSA AP Economics Writer
The Associated Press, April 13, 2007
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/4712904.html
WASHINGTON — The woman at the heart of the controversy that has
embroiled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz says she is a victim
and was forced into a job transfer because of their relationship.
Shaha Riza said that at no time did she report directly to
Wolfowitz and that he had proposed to recuse himself from any
decisions involving her to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
She said the ethics committee of the World Bank's board had
required her "to go on external assignment contrary to my wishes."
Riza was detailed to a high-paying job at the State Department in
September 2005. "I have now been victimized for agreeing to an
arrangement that I have objected to and that I did not believe from
the outset was in my best interest," she said.
Her comments were made in a memo to an ad hoc committee of the
World Bank looking into the circumstances surrounding her transfer.
The memo was part of a set of documents released by the bank on
Friday.
Wolfowitz has said he made a mistake and has apologized for his
role in Riza's promotion. The White House expressed fresh support
for Wolfowitz on Friday.
However, some of the bank's staff have called for him to resign.
The World Bank's board has been looking into the matter, which has
overshadowed this weekend's meetings of the 185-nation World Bank
and International Monetary Fund.
A bank official said the board was not meeting on the Wolfowitz
matter on Friday but was focusing on the meetings. The bank's
mission is to fight poverty and improve living standards for the
poor. It lends about $20 billion a year for various projects.
Before her transfer to the State Department, Riza worked as a
communications adviser in the bank's Middle East Department. In her
memo, Riza said she did not want to be put on detail away from the
bank and did not expect "any special considerations."
She lamented "vicious public attacks" she said she has received
over the matter. The episode, she said, has affected her
"professionally, physically and psychologically."
The packet of documents released by the World Bank included new
details about Wolfowitz's involvement in Riza's job transfer.
Two months after arriving at the bank on June 1, 2005, Wolfowitz
sent a memo to the bank's vice president of human resources, laying
out details concerning Riza's employment and compensation.
"I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the
following terms and conditions," Wolfowitz instructed. "You should
accept immediately her offer to be detailed to an outside
institution of her choosing, while retaining bank salary and
benefits."
The Wolfowitz memo went on say that Riza should receive a
promotion, draw a salary of $180,000 and get annual pay increases
of 8 percent.
Before the job change, Riza was believed to be getting paid close
to $133,000. After the transfer, she received $193,590, according
to the Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group.
Riza remains on the World Bank's payroll though she left the State
Department job in 2006 and now works for Foundation for the Future,
an international organization that gets some money from the
department.
When asked what Riza does at the foundation, State Department
deputy spokesman Tom Casey on Friday said his "best understanding"
was that she is an adviser to the foundation's board. "I do not
have a job description for her, no," he said.
Riza's pay package has led to accusations of favoritism from bank
employees. The World Bank's staff association wants Wolfowitz to
resign. So does presidential hopeful John Edwards, the former
senator from North Carolina who weighed in Friday.
"America's ability to lead in the fight against global poverty is
undermined with Paul Wolfowitz at the helm of the World Bank,"
Edwards said. He said Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank has been
marked by some of the same "failures as his term managing the war
in Iraq — cronyism and rhetoric that does not match reality — and
now serious questions of financial integrity."
President Bush appointed Wolfowitz — a main architect of the Iraq
war when he served as deputy defense secretary — to the top job at
the World Bank. The appointment was greeted with protests by
international aid and other groups.
The United States — the bank's largest shareholder — is standing by
Wolfowitz during the current turmoil. "The president has confidence
in Paul Wolfowitz and his work at the World Bank," said White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino.
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