Wolfowitz Must Leave World Bank

Forget for a moment that Paul Wolfowitz is one of the architects of the disastrous war in Iraq-Nam. Forget for a moment that his actions in the first part of this decade would have landed him in the Hague to stand trial for war crimes had he been Serbian. Forget for a moment that he is a chemist and mathematician by education not an economist, and thus, is unqualified to head the World Bank. He needs to resign from the World Bank because he abused his position of power to enrich his girlfriend thus undermining the Bank’s drive against corruption around the world.

The facts are pretty simple. When Mr. Wolfowitz left the Defense Department a couple of years ago, Mr. Bush appointed him president of the World Bank. Under the post-World War II arrangements, the US gets to appoint the head of the Bank while the Europeans get to appoint the top man at the International Monetary Fund. This made Mr. Wolfowitz the boss of Shaha Ali Riza and the rest of the World Bank staff. Mr. Wolfowitz and Ms. Riza have been romantically attached for some time, and everyone knew about it before his appointment.

So far, it was just a minor issue. She needed to find a new position, and he should have recused himself from dealing with her severance arrangements. She did find something over at the State Department, but Mr. Wolfowitz was up to his neck in her severance package. She got a $60,000 raise, from $132,660 to $193,590 (tax-exempt), a grade level promotion, and she was guaranteed an 8% increase per year after that. All of this occurred at the insistence of Mr. Wolfowitz.

Now, $60,000 isn’t much in an organization that manages $25 billion. Many of the World Bank projects lose that in paperwork every year. That is not the point. As the Dutch Development Minister Bert Koenders told Radio Nederlands, “The worst thing about the affair is that Mr. Wolfowitz has used his public role to benefit his girlfriend at the bank’s costs and one can’t do this if one is the president of a bank which has made fighting corruption in developing countries its principal objective. I believe that one should be able to criticise developing countries on this issue, but one should then make sure that one’s own organisation is not based on favouritism.”

The World Bank has been on a crusade against corruption in the developing world since its previous president James Wolfensohn started campaigning against it a decade ago. Mr. Wolfowitz has admitted he made a mistake, and one must forgive him the error. After all, it is a lesser mistake than demanding that the US attack Iraq-Nam. However, he said, “A lot of hard work still has to be done in helping developing countries. I believe in the mission of this organization and I believe that I can carry it out.” No, he can’t. He has no credibility, and it is best if he would leave.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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