Posted on 04/20/2007 10:25:11 PM PDT by Kitten Festival
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is embroiled in scandal. A controversy surrounding the treatment given his girlfriend, another World Bank employee, has damaged Mr. Wolfowitz's credibility and that of the institution he heads. Mr. Wolfowitz may gain approval to stay on, but continuing in his post would be a mistake if he truly believes in the bank's mission.
Mr. Wolfowitz went to the World Bank after serving four years as the U.S. deputy secretary of defense, the number two in the Pentagon. While Mr. Wolfowitz was one of the intellectual architects of the Iraq war, he also served as ambassador to Indonesia and has had a long-standing interest in development issues.
Scandal has erupted over the role Mr. Wolfowitz played in arranging a temporary post at the State Department for his girlfriend -- who also works at the bank -- that involved promotions and high pay raises. The particulars of the deal were arranged by Mr. Wolfowitz in violation of the World Bank's personnel policies. At first, Mr. Wolfowitz denied any role in the favorable treatment, but later conceded involvement, and admitted to having made mistakes in handling the issue.
Unfortunately for Mr. Wolfowitz, this controversy is only the most recent episode in what has been a very tumultuous tenure.
(Excerpt) Read more at search.japantimes.co.jp ...
Here's the real issue.
L
>> Finally, Mr. Wolfowitz has championed an anticorruption campaign among recipients of World Bank loans that has worried many donors. They are concerned that it will politicize the institution. <<
As if that organization isn’t alredy politicized!! And you’re right on. Wolfowitz was walking into a viper’s nest.
And yet here we go again with another pathetic piece of journalism that simply doesn’t reflect what happened in the case. Wolfowitz mentioned his conflict of interest before he began his job. He asked to be recused from the whole process of pay raises/promotions for his girlfriend. The Ethics Committee of the World Bank stated that it could not be involved and instructed him to begin taking action.
Now, whether he acted excessively is up for debate. But the fact that these so-called “journalists” can’t seem to put a half decent story together with the facts already revealed pretty much tells me that they’re not interested in the truth.
Surprise, surprise.
That and the fact that he was serious in fighting corruption at World Bank, probably for the first time in its history :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1820446/posts
Also, he put the loan approval process on business-like basis, not just throwing away money on politically correct projects with the loans that everybody knew would later be “forgiven” i.e. be paid back to the banks by taxpayers.
If the Iraq war weren’t such a miserable failure, it would not be an issue.
L
How about this:
Dr. Paul D. Wolfowitz serves at the pleasure of the President of the United States.
Have we heard this before?
And I'm hoping it pleases the President immensely to keep sticking his thumb in the eyes of those crooks at the World Bank.
But that's just me.
L
Forgive me for making the following statement:
I think it’s necessary to look into the swindling of US taxpayer's dollars in the context of Iraq's reconstruction....it is simply gross (for lack of better words).
By all means. And you don't need to ask me for forgiveness. I think anyone stealing money intended for the rebuilding of Iraq or Afghanistan should be drawn and quartered.
That being said, the World Bank has been stealing from the US taxpayer for decades. And the real problem here seems to be that Wolfowitz wouldn't play nice with a bunch of Eurotrash crooks.
L
Wolfie stays and the left loses. HE WILL NOT STEP DOWN!
LLS
“If the Iraq war weren’t such a miserable failure, it would not be an issue.”
Is that YOU Senator reid???
LLS
The left wants to get rid of Wolfowitz because he is a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq and that he’s a “neoconservative” (left-winged code word for “Jew”).
It only STARTED getting successful after Wolfie (and Rummy) left, sorry to say. They didn’t have a clue as to how to run a war. Wolfie wanted to make it a big social work project without achieving victory first, hiring his cronies’ 26-year-old relatives in those $100,000 a year “nationbuilding” jobs, which accomplished nothing but wasted tons of money.
It says something that even Bob Gates, who’s a bland boring bureaucrat with no ‘vision thing’ is doing a better job at winning the war than supposedly ‘brilliant’ Wolfie. Says a lot in fact about how incompentent Wolfie really was. Now he’s showing the same incompetence at the World Bank. He dropped himself into it, wanting to go whole hog on nationbuilding, not just in Iraq but everywhere else, too. He’s making a mess of things like he did in Iraq. Lovely.
Who hooked his Arab girlfriend up with a job at the Bank.
Wasn’t the World Bank known for a long time by another moniker....
McNamera’s Bank?
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