World Bank Pledges Action – Wolfowitz Fights for Job
Krishna Guha reports for the Financial Times that “Paul Wolfowitz’s future as president of the World Bank was in jeopardy on Friday after the bank’s board issued a damaging finding of facts on his role in the Shaha Riza affair and pledged to ‘move expeditiously to reach a conclusion on possible actions to take.’
The board said that its ‘consideration of the matter’ would ‘focus on all the relevant governance implications for the Bank’.
The promise of further action will intensify pressure on Mr Wolfowitz to step down of his own accord, ahead of possible censure by the board.”
Meanwhile, Paul Wolfowitz fights for his job, while taking responsibility for the entire controversy. He admits that he has made mistakes, but he hopes that he will be able to carry on with his work for the WB…
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16 Responses to “World Bank Pledges Action – Wolfowitz Fights for Job”
I don’t expect Wolfowitz to step down, especially after giving the lamest of excuses for the mess with his girlfriend. His judgement seems to be impaired at least on this-not sure if it has affected his decisions regarding the running of the World Bank.
He probably will be censured by the Board but left in place, even with the obvious disrespect and hostility he has engendered from his staff. My feeling is the board should be examining his past behavior, but also whether he will be able to be effective in governing the Bank from here on out.
> He probably will be censured by the Board
I bet he will be forced to leave, or else demoted. He’s probably gone.
I read in WaPo that he still has support on the Board and that they probably won’t force him to leave-even though his staff obviously can’t stand him. I think he was over his head at the World Bank- even he says so-it was another loyalist promotion by Bush.
Most of the prior Presidents have had a PHD and 25 years of related development experience. Wolfie pulls in 240,000 tax free. If they don’t get rid of him, they ought to at least let him sweat it out in the media Imus-style for a few days!
Bush and the neocons have taken third world debt and profitted from poor nations. What W and Paul Singer have done borders on corruption. I wonder what Wolfie had to do with this.
According to Sebastian Mallaby, Wolfie’s performance problems center but are not confined to the pay scandal. It looks bad for an antipoverty institution to pay 240,000 tax free to VP Kevin Kellems (who unsurprisingly lacks appropriate experience having worked with Wolfie in the Pentagon)Robin Cleveland- (same story as Kellems) making 250,000 tax free, and of course girlfriend Riza making 194,000. Wolfie originally denied involvement in Riza’s promotions but had to admit he had lied about it yesterday.
Wolfowitz’s signature issue was fighting corruption, so this really looks pretty bad.
KR – Maybe Wolfie is qualified to work at the UN. I wonder what Hannity and Limpbaugh have to say about their friend?
Wonder how the WH could defend yet another poor appointment with corruption problems? They reportedly removed the USA’s for performance problems, yet have nothing to say about high level appointees with much more visible and consequential performance problems, LOL. To add insult to injury, Western nations raised a lot lessunder Wolfie in anti-poverty money for third-world countries. Fighting third world poverty has been the stated goal of the World Bank since 9/11 brought the danger in the gap home to developed nations.
K Ritter said:
> Wonder how the WH could defend yet another
> poor appointment with corruption problems?
Like this — similar to how it defends Gonzales:
Q Thank you. Thank you, Dana. I wanted to ask you about Paul Wolfowitz. He’s under a cloud. Do you still support him fully?
MS. PERINO: Yes, the President has confidence in Paul Wolfowitz and his work at the World Bank. At the organization, he has worked to lift people out of poverty around the world. He has focused his priorities on Africa, good governance, and how the World Bank can respond better and more efficiently to crises around the world.
He is talking with his board at the Bank. The board is performing a review, and I’ll leave it at that.
Q And does that — still a follow-up is, does that include instructions to your executive director at the Bank to do everything possible to prevent him from being removed?
MS. PERINO: I’ve not heard that. No, I mean, I think that is an independent organization and that review is being done by their board.
Q But the board — the board includes directors from the national government, you have your own director there.
MS. PERINO: I’ll check, Andre, but, no, I didn’t hear that this morning.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070413-1.html
DLS- it was a rhetorical question, LOL!
> DLS- it was a rhetorical question, LOL!
I couldn’t resist, though. It was Standard Operating Procedure once more.
Now, will this or won’t this be the kiss of death? A clue might be if Bush refers later to him (or to Gonzales) by his first name only. Just like how good old “Trent” (Lott) was treated.
Competence?
We’ll have to listen in for any clues -the name thing or that he might need to spend more time with his family (er girlfriend in this case). I thought the kiss of death was if Bush said that (insert name here) had his unqualified support, but I think he said that about Gonzo, and he’s survived so far.
I’m sorry. I have completely ran of space for recording corrupt republicans. I will have to attach yet another Main Frame to my data base. Until then, I simply cannot take yet another corrupt republican story.
WA- Then you definitely wouldn’t want to know about the new Governor of Nevada!
> I thought the kiss of death was if Bush said
> that (insert name here) had his unqualified
> support, but I think he said that about Gonzo,
> and he’s survived so far.
Point taken.
kritter- Holy Smoke. Please God, make it end.