Report: Wolfowitz has resigned as president of the World Bank

Re: Wolfowitz World Bank Scandal - running updates thread

This is a better article on what the former World Bank official is alleging about Wolfowitz than the one I posted in the post preceding this one:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wolfowitz2may02,1,7858997.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

 

Re: Wolfowitz World Bank Scandal - running updates thread

The WB committee charged with investigating the actions of Wolfowitz are reportedly approaching the conclusion that the WB president did, in fact, breach the rules of the organization:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/03/america/03wolfowitz.php

This is a very good article, and it details some other pertinent information on Wolfowitz' situation, particularly the sentiments of some of his former colleagues

 

Re: Wolfowitz World Bank Scandal - running updates thread

Wolfowitz, seemingly feeling more cornered, is now turning on his girlfriend Shaha Riza (through his lawyer Bob Bennett) to take the heat off himself:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18477485/site/newsweek/

 

Re: Wolfowitz World Bank Scandal - running updates thread

Exec Board now, Hague tribunal to come. Squirm, Wolfie, squirm. You maggot.

 

Re: Report: World Bank committee to find that Wolfowitz breached ethical rules

The latest, from the WaPo:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302045.html

 

Re: Report: World Bank committee to find that Wolfowitz breached ethical rules

"While I am prepared to acknowledge that we all acted in good faith at the time and there was perhaps some confusion and miscommunication among us, it is grossly unfair and wrong to suggest that I intended to mislead anyone, and I urge the committee to reject the allegation that I lack credibility," Wolfowitz wrote. "Rather than attempt to adjudicate between our conflicting interpretations of the events that occurred here, the board should recognize that this situation is the product of ambiguous bank rules and unclear governance mechanisms."

How was the poor guy supposed to know right from wrong?

 

Re: Report: World Bank committee to find that Wolfowitz breached ethical rules

I know, it's so hard on him, to keep having to negotiate (through his power lawyer) from ever-increasing levels of weakness. *wipes tear from eye*

Here's the money part of the above quote, IMO:

"I lack credibility"

That conclusion seems to be getting more inescapable by the day

 

Re: Report: Wolfowitz wants tax-free $400K bonus before he would resign from WB

Note: I have not seen any corroborating reports on this, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, Wolfowitz' position has been steadily weakening over the past week, and the conventional wisdom is that he will be forced to resign, particularly in light of the WB investigative committee reportedly set to find that he breached the organization's ethical guidelines:

http://www.rense.com/general76/wb.htm

 

Re: Wolfowitz latest: WB board to meet this week to decide on his future

This article makes it sound as if Wolfowitz will have to step down from his post as president of the World Bank, either on his on terms or on those dictated by the Bank's executive board:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2007-05-06T210119Z_01_N06293270_RTRIDST_0_WORLDBANK-WOLFOWITZ.XML


An article on Wolfowitz and the World Bank wherein the author declares that he has finally come to a conclusion on the matter after waiting for enough facts to come in:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/06/politics/animal/main2764354.shtml

 

Re: WB board: Wolfowitz guilty of conflict of interest; top Wolfowitz aide resig

The latest, from the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/business/07cnd-wolf.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

It seems more and more likely that Wolfowitz' days as president of the WB are coming to an end

 

Re: WB board: Wolfowitz guilty of conflict of interest; top Wolfowitz aide resig

While on vaca, I just read the Wolfowitz piece in the New Yorker. Even if you're not into this story, it's a great read:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/09/070409fa_fact_cassidy/?printable=true

The girlfriend:

The incident that prompted the most comment internally involved Shaha Ali Riza. When Wolfowitz was nominated to the bank presidency, he disclosed his relationship with Riza, who was working in the bank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) department. Under the bank’s regulations, spouses or partners are prohibited from supervising one another or from working in the same cone of authority. As president, Wolfowitz oversees a cone of authority encompassing nearly all the bank’s employees, including those in MENA. The board of directors’ ethics committee took the view that Riza should be transferred to a position outside his supervision. Wolfowitz asked that she be allowed to maintain her job at MENA and to work with him as necessary, offering to recuse himself from any decisions concerning her pay and work conditions. “It really gave a bad impression, especially for somebody who was making a big issue of good governance,” a former senior official at the bank said. “The president is supposed to set an example to everybody, and yet here he wanted to have his girlfriend working with him, which is flatly prohibited under bank rules.”

Ultimately, Riza was seconded to the State Department. To compensate her for the disruption of her career at the bank, she was promoted to the managerial level, and she has received two pay raises, bringing her salary to a hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars—more than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes. “The staff are very upset,” Alison Cave, the chairman of the World Bank Staff Group Association, said, explaining that the raises amounted to special treatment that violated established bank guidelines.

Wolfowitz, dick:

At the World Bank, Wolfowitz soon made it clear that he would leave many of his administrative duties to others. At internal meetings, he indicated the policy areas that were important to him, but he seldom got involved in the details of implementing them. Rather than appointing bank staffers as his principal aides, as previous presidents had done, Wolfowitz hired two American political operatives who were closely associated with the war in Iraq: Robin Cleveland, who had been the associate director for National Security Programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget; and Kevin Kellems, who had been with Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. Perhaps inevitably, Cleveland and Kellems antagonized many on the bank’s staff. “Their attitude was: We are brighter than other people, we know more than other people,” a bank veteran who recently left told me. “They were unaccountable because they had no direct-line authority. Officially, they were just advisers to the president, but in fact they were calling the shots.”

Cleveland, in particular, incited hostility. On Capitol Hill, where she had worked for Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, she was known as “the dragon lady,” because of her aggressive approach to negotiations. In 2002, she moved to the Office of Management and Budget, where she helped to provide financing for the Iraq war, and for President Bush’s AIDS initiative. More than half a dozen current and former bank staff members gave me critical assessments of Cleveland. “She is vindictive to the core,” one said. Cleveland, who often acts as a trouble-shooter for Wolfowitz, conceded that she can be demanding. “I am impatient, and I apologize for that, but it’s impatience in trying to get things done,” she said. “We are only here for a short time, and there are incredibly important things to do.” Kellems, a low-key Midwesterner, provoked less controversy at the bank, though some called him “the keeper of the comb”—a reference to the film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” in which Wolfowitz is shown preparing for a television appearance by spitting on his comb before applying it to his hair.

 

Re: Wolfowitz latest: European governments willing to negotiate on next WB pres

Thanks for that link and excerpt, TBL. It is appreciated.

European governments appear willing to forego their desire to alter the traditional selection process for the next World Bank president in return for Wolfowitz' quickly stepping down as current president:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/08/news/newsmakers/wolfowitz/?postversion=2007050818