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Wolfowitz Mission
Christo Komarnitski, Bulgaria
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8 Responses to “Wolfowitz Mission”
Before spreading such slander, it would be sensible to get the facts. As summarized by a WSJ editorial, the World Bank documents show that Wolfowitz’s behavior was entirely correct, and that it was the ethics committee which made the recommendations for which he is now being skewered.
Typical conservative corrupt corporate behavior. Typical cover-up by conservative corrupt corporate crooks. Same old story, republicans are better than everybody else, so they get to cheat.
The larger point is why did Wolfie deserve the top job at the World Bank in the first place? His Iraq plan will go down as one of the most idealistic, naive misconceptions in the history of the Defense Dept- he was wrong about just about everything that he predicted. He wrangled a fat $400,000 salary for himself – the same salary as the POTUS makes, and also managed a cool quarter mil for two aides that he brought with him from the Pentagon-neither of whom had a shred of development experience.
In many ways, he resembles Bush- in that he kept to his inner circle-even when their advice was ill-informed, ignoring the more experienced voices at the Bank. Resentment for his hubristic management style was so great, that the Board is now dealing with not only his alleged ethical lapse regarding Ms. Riza, but a revolt of bank employees, who want him out. This is not a successful man- smart? maybe but his ideas don’t work in the real world.
K. Ritter asked:
> The larger point is why
> did Wolfie deserve the
> top job at the World Bank
> in the first place?
He is as good as or better than others who have led that organization. And while what he did was wrong, the World Bank really is corrupt. I’ll give you just a brief story: I have a radical friend in DC (in the GBLT community, PETA member, wants Kucinich to be President) who worked at, among other places, the World Bank, and there was effective slavery practiced by people at that organization who were exploiting their fellow foreign nationals. This is in addition to the obvious corruption involved in World Bank programs of assistance worldwide. My friend hates the World Bank.
Wolfowitz is experienced in foreign activity other than Iraq(!); he was ambassador to Indonesia, don’t forget.
Somebody needs to kick those people in the ass. Do you remember Paul O’Neill? His recount (written by Suskind) of his Bush Administration period includes when he toured Africa with Bono (for whom O’Neill developed a large degree of respect), and this part of the book went to great lengths describing the dysfunctionality of the NGOs and their miring their ways in bureaucracy (and corruption, same as we see in the UN) rather than digging a @#$@#$ well where it is needed. Even the far Left mentions that (with godawful bias, but still worth looking at):
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0122-09.htm
(Smile, K:)
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/ORGANIZATION/EXTOFFICEPRESIDENT/0,,contentMDK:20519590~menuPK:51175739~pagePK:51174171~piPK:64258873~theSitePK:1014541,00.html
White Agent Says:
April 17th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Typical conservative corrupt corporate behavior. Typical cover-up by conservative corrupt corporate crooks. Same old story, republicans are better than everybody else, so they get to cheat.
Perhaps you should read the facts before making a judgement.
http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009948
The paper trail shows that Mr. Wolfowitz had asked to recuse himself from matters related to his girlfriend, a longtime World Bank employee, before he signed his own employment contract. The bank’s general counsel at the time, Roberto Danino, wrote in a May 27, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyers:
“First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member.” (Our emphasis here and elsewhere.)
That would have settled the matter at any rational institution, given that his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, worked four reporting layers below the president in the bank hierarchy. But the bank board–composed of representatives from donor nations–decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate. And it was the ethics committee that concluded that Ms. Riza’s job entailed a “de facto conflict of interest” that could only be resolved by her leaving the bank.
Ms. Riza was on a promotion list at the time, and so the bank’s ethicists also proposed that she be compensated for this blow to her career. In a July 22, 2005, ethics committee discussion memo, Mr. Danino noted that “there would be two avenues here for promotion–an ‘in situ’ promotion to Grade GH for the staff member” and promotion through competitive selection to another position.” Or, as an alternative, “The Bank can also decide, as part of settlement of claims, to offer an ad hoc salary increase.”
Five days later, on July 27, ethics committee chairman Ad Melkert formally advised Mr. Wolfowitz in a memo that “the potential disruption of the staff member’s career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record . . .” In the same memo, Mr. Melkert recommends “that the President, with the General Counsel, communicates this advice” to the vice president for human resources “so as to implement” it immediately.
And in an August 8 letter, Mr. Melkert advised that the president get this done pronto: “The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction.” Only then did Mr. Wolfowitz instruct Mr. Coll on the details of Ms. Riza’s new job and pay raise.
kritter Says:
April 17th, 2007 at 5:03 am
In many ways, he resembles Bush- in that he kept to his inner circle-even when their advice was ill-informed, ignoring the more experienced voices at the Bank. Resentment for his hubristic management style was so great, that the Board is now dealing with not only his alleged ethical lapse regarding Ms. Riza, but a revolt of bank employees, who want him out.
Or perhaps his unwillingness to allow corrupt practices to continue and his upsetting the years of cozy relationships between the bank and various third wold pocket liners put people on the spot and they used a trumped up charge to try to vilify and destroy someone, with the help of an unquetioning press and a sector of the public so blinded by hate they will not listen to the rest of the story as it emerges.
DLS-The problems with Wolfie are that he sought to end corruption in the World Bank, yet approved the ridiculous and unearned raises for his own girlfriend, and that he brought unqualified cronies with him with no development experience from the Pentagon. He then listened to them instead of the more experienced voices at the Bank, engendering hostility from those with many years of experience in the organization. Also, he is an idealist, and does not live in the real world. Even if his motives are pure- as they were in Iraq, he is clueless about how to make them translate to results in the real world. In the real world these international organizations don’t always operate under ideal conditions- so they do the best that they can. How can the guy operate successfully under those conditions?. Add to that the job was a reward for his pathetic efforts in Iraq, not a serious effort to stem world poverty. If that was his goal he wouldn’t be making a presidential salary and paying his underlings so much money. The people under him at the World Bank hate him. Wolfie is an embarassment.
I had read O’Neill’s account which tells you that Bush doesn’t care about world poverty – he just is trying to make the US safe through force- which is totally screwed up, and why he has been so unsuccessful in his foreign policy efforts. It is also why he is vilified.
NY Moderate- BS.
All this just to confuse the issue and/or cover up either
ONE: Gross Corruption
or
TWO: Utter Stupidty.
Any way you slice it, Wolfowitz is a disgrace and has brought disgrace to the World Bank. Just like his incompetence did the Defense Dept..
(Not related but didn’t he also have the alias: Elroy?)
A 60,000$ raise over a short time period was out of step with raises given to other employees at the Bank. There is no way that Riza should be making more than the Secretary of State, and that Wolfowitz should be making as much as the President, after his dismal performance at Defense. The appearance of impropriety in those positions is as important as the actual violation. Wolfowitz should recognize that even if he retains his position, he will no longer be effective (if he ever was) within the organization. He should do the right thing and step down. BTW, has he ever acknowledged the huge error he made in Iraq War planning? How many people in this administration were rewarded with medals and plum assignments (he received both) for blowing it?