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May 15, 2007

More details leak as Wolfowitz digs in: 'Angry Wolfowitz in four-letter tirade'

Angry Wolfowitz in four-letter tirade. Guardian U.K.:

An angry and bitter Paul Wolfowitz poured abuse and threatened retaliations on senior World Bank staff if his orders for pay rises and promotions for his partner were revealed, according to new details published last night.

Under fire for the lavish package given to Shaha Riza, a World Bank employee and Mr Wolfowitz's girlfriend when he became president, an official investigation into the controversy has found that Mr Wolfowitz broke bank rules and violated his own contract – setting off a struggle between US and European governments over Mr Wolfowitz's future.

Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader, in testimony by one key witness Mr Wolfowitz declares: "If they **** with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to **** them too."

The remarks were published in a report detailing the controversy that erupted last month after the size of Ms Riza's pay rises was revealed. The report slates Mr Wolfowitz for his "questionable judgment and a preoccupation with self-interest", saying: "Mr Wolfowitz saw himself as the outsider to whom the established rules and standards did not apply."

Whatever happened to resigning in disgrace for the good of the country? "We got it and we ain't gonna give it up" seems to mark remarkably unqualified Bush favorites such as Wolfowitz and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales.

Yesterday vice president Dick Cheney defended Mr Wolfowitz, saying: "Paul is one of the most able public servants I've ever known .... I think he's a very good president of the World Bank, and I hope he will be able to continue."

The US treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, was yesterday said to also be drumming up support for Mr Wolfowitz, while European governments increasingly despair of US intransigence in allowing Mr Wolfowitz to hang on.

World Bank President owns this story. Yesterday, the blog published a letter from 37 World Bank Country Directors calling on "the Board and the President to resolve the crisis quickly in a way that demonstrates the Bank's commitment to the highest standards of integrity and accountability," and reported that Tony Blair is being suggested to replace Wolfowitz -- if he can be moved.

Related: If the tip of the iceberg -- the shenanigans with Wolfowitz's girlfriend and her pay package -- seem an odd flashpoint for an international furor, here's the short list, and some backstory:

What Wolfowitz did wrong: The key findings of the panel of World Bank executives that have put Paul Wolfowitz's future on a knife-edge. Times U.K.

Juan Cole in Salon: Paul Wolfowitz's fatal weakness: The cronyism that may cost him his World Bank job is also what caused the Iraq debacle.

Soon after becoming head of the World Bank, Wolfowitz lapsed into his typical favoritism, even while he was, ironically, decrying the technique as practiced by governments of the global South. Instead of having an open search for some key positions and allowing for promotions from within, Wolfowitz simply installed Republicans from the Bush administration in high positions with enormous salaries. He brought Kevin Kellems from Dick Cheney's office (where he had been communications director) and gave him a tax-free salary said to have been as high as $250,000 a year. As Wolfowitz's new senior advisor, Kellems was leap-frogged over hundreds of officials with serious credentials in development work, something about which he knew little. When representing Cheney, Kellems went to great lengths to defend the vice president's implausible conspiracy theory linking Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Another controversial Wolfowitz appointment was Robin Cleveland, whom he made his assistant. She had been an aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell and then associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. She had been implicated in a corruption and nepotism scandal at the Pentagon, but the Department of Defense had determined it did not have jurisdiction to investigate her. In 2003, while at the OMB, she had lobbied then Secretary of the Air Force James Roche to get her brother a job at defense contractor Northrop Grumman, where Roche had been an executive. Though, like Kellems, she lacked experience in international development, she also received a reported quarter of a million dollars a year in compensation at the World Bank. And also like Kellems, she is alleged to have been an abrasive and abusive boss.

Wolfowitz appointee Juan José Daboub quietly began changing World Bank policy on contraception, presumably as a favor to the Bush administration, which depends heavily on the Christian right for support. Daboub, who had been close to the right-wing government of El Salvador, ordered all references to family planning removed from a strategy document for Madagascar. Bank officials were said by the Financial Times to have been afraid that the World Bank's long-standing focus on contraception in forestalling disease was being changed by Daboub, and that poor women would suffer as a result. When the story surfaced, Wolfowitz told National Public Radio that the bank had made no changes in policy on contraceptives.

Experienced, high-level World Bank officials began resigning in droves as they saw Wolfowitz institute a reign of cronies with little development experience and massive salaries. The management style of the newcomers, cliquish among themselves and harsh toward outsiders, alienated those who remained. ...

Robert McNamara was able to overcome anti-Vietnam sentiment when he became president of the World Bank, earning respect for his work there. However embarrassed we may be at how Wolfowitz and his entourage have represented us there, they still refuse to acknowledge the failure is theirs.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:58 AM | Permalink