WASHINGTON, April 12 — Paul D. Wolfowitz’s tenure as president of the World Bank was thrown into turmoil on Thursday by the disclosure that he had helped arrange a pay raise for his companion at the time of her transfer from the bank to the State Department, where she remained on the bank payroll.
In a chaotic day of revelations and meetings at a normally staid institution, Mr. Wolfowitz apologized for his role in the raise and transfer of Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, to a few hundred staff members assembled in the bank building atrium, only to be greeted by booing, catcalls and cries for his resignation.
[....]
Mr. Wolfowitz apologized at a morning news conference and at the atrium meeting after the staff association disclosed that it had found a dated memorandum from Mr. Wolfowitz to a vice president for human resources at the bank, apparently instructing him to agree to the terms of a raise and reassignment for Ms. Riza.
The transfer and a subsequent raise eventually took her to a pay of $193,590 from $132,660, tax-free because of her status as a diplomat, and exceeding the salaries of cabinet members. “In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations,” Mr. Wolfowitz said.
[....]
What drove the anger at the bank was not that Mr. Wolfowitz had denied earlier that he had sought Ms. Riza’s transfer, but that he had been less than fully candid in discussing it until documents surfaced showing his direct role. His earlier insistence that he had consulted with ethics officials was disputed by some of them, who say they were not involved in the salary aspect of discussions.
Mr. Wolfowitz, who is divorced, has been close to Ms. Riza for several years, according to people who have worked with them. She was a communications officer in the Middle East and North Africa bureau of the bank when Mr. Wolfowitz arrived in 2005, and was transferred that September to the Middle East and North Africa bureau to help set up a semi-independent foundation to promote democracy in that region.
Her initial supervisor at the State Department was Elizabeth Cheney, whose father, Vice President Dick Cheney, has been a longtime associate of Mr. Wolfowitz. Ms. Riza now serves as a consultant to the foundation, the Foundation for the Future, while drawing her World Bank salary, the State Department said.
So Wolfowitz gives his girlfriend a $130,000 job at the World Bank, with pay raises, but doesn't really disclose his own involvement in providing Riza with the job and raises to the board itself. Talk about your conflict of ethics here. What is even more ironic is that Wolfowitz was targeting corruption within the World Bank. According to the NY Times:
For example, as part of his broad anticorruption drive, Mr. Wolfowitz for a time suspended aid to India, Chad, Kenya and other countries without consulting the board. Uzbekistan’s aid was suspended after it ousted American troops in 2005, leading to charges of political motivation.
[....]
He also appeared a victim of his own declaration that he would bring a new era of accountability to the bank. He boasted that he had doubled the staff of the public integrity division so it could prosecute cases of graft against corporations and bank employees, stirring resentment throughout the bank that he saw them all as corrupt.
And while Wolfowitz is embarking on this broad anti-corruption drive within the World Bank, he is giving his girlfriend a plum job at the World Bank--is that also defined as corruption?
I should point out that Paul Wolfowitz is also a member of the Project for a New American Century, which is the neoconservative group that has taken control of the Bush administration's foreign and military policy, and was the driving force for the administration's invasion of Iraq. We've seen how the neocons have created disaster after disaster on policies and issues within this administration--Iraq, the Great War on Terror, intelligence failures, Valerie Plame, and perhaps even the attorney purge. And now we have Wolfowitz embroiled in this scandal.
And one final little detail here--President Bush backs Wolfowitz:
PRESIDENT George W. Bush continues to support World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz despite a scandal over pay raises and promotions given to his girlfriend, the White House said today.
“The President has confidence in Paul Wolfowitz and his work at the World Bank," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
“At the organisation, 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,” she said.
“He is talking to his board at the bank; the board is performing a review and I'll leave it at that.”
Which is probably of no surprise to anyone here.
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