Wolfowitz: "I run this institution, after all!"

[sabra]

http://www.newstatesman.com/Economy/200605150014

The worst man in the world?
Cover story
Robert Calderisi
Monday 15th May 2006


Paul Wolfowitz, the former US deputy defence secretary and main architect of the Iraq war, has run the World Bank for a year. His regime is highly secretive, but insiders have talked exclusively to Robert Calderisi

The World Bank is a strange place. It believes it is doing humanitarian work, but humanity does not return the favour, thinking the bank an enforcer of bloodless rules and an abetter rather than reliever of world poverty. Yet, for all its perceived faults, it is a UN agency and an important source of advice and money (roughly $20bn a year) for countries trying to climb the development ladder. Its values are not very different from those of the rest of the world. Asked for their reactions to the arrival of the former US deputy defence secretary as their president last June, 1,300 staff responded within 48 hours - 92 per cent of them negatively.

...

In the past two months, attitudes within the bank have hardened. Most staff feel the incomers are acting as if they were a new US administration, distrusting everyone they haven't appointed themselves, rather than respecting the competence and loyalty of a civil service in a parliamentary system. What's more, Wolfowitz and his advisers have shown the same secretive, unilateralist, omniscient bent as the Bush White House just down the street. Rather bizarrely, for an international organisation, the inner circle is ill at ease with foreigners and shows a marked preference for US nationals.

Relations with the bank's board are also highly strained. At a nine-hour meeting to discuss a controversial proposal, Wolfowitz is said to have protested: "I run this institution, after all!" "No," the Chinese director barked back. "We do." And board members learned in the news-papers that the bank had suspended its operations in Uzbekistan, a decision that required their formal approval.

[beingthere]

1. He thinks he's the decider, apparently. n/t

[politicaholic]

2. Wolfowitz is an absolute nutcase...

a visionary of the most moronic of proportions. My cat could have planned the attack on Iraq better.

Fuck wad.

[sabra]

3. Looks like he's keeping it going @ the World Bank

[politicaholic]

10. Forget the culture of corruption, what about the culture of incompetence..

time to get out the abacus and the weighing stones and get down to business...okay, one for Eritrea, two for Bechtel, one for Laos, four for Nike...

I hope I never have to stand in front of that man at a party and have to restrain my rage so to not embarrass my date because I don't think I could.

[spanone]

4. Soon we'll be investigating this criminal too.

Wait your turn mr. waffledick.

[bridgit]

5. fucking Wolfowitz, he's got as much tack as a flaccid balloon...

x(

[DemoTex]

6. "No," the Chinese director barked back. "We do."

Wolfie had best learn who his new masters are. Go suck a comb, Wolfie!

[Poll_Blind]

8. Really chilling exchange there. The reality of it is stunning in its...

...simplicity.

PB

[Javaman]

11. I love watching our Chinese rulers spank down our

corporate puppets.

Ahhh, such a breath of air.

Wait a second...

Didn't the U.S. used to be leaders of something, sometime, long ago????

oh well, hail to our fearless money lenders!!! For it was our wise Asian overlords that funded the Iraq foray and supply us with endless support the troops magnets.

Excuse me while I go brush up on my Mandarin, we will certainly need it.

[davekriss]

13. Wolfowitz = War Criminal

Keep in mind that Paul Wolfowitz, along with Scooter Libby, wrote the draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) for George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992 (they wrote it for Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, who presented it to GHWB). GHWB thought it was so wacky that he insisted it be scrubbed and a more moderate DPG was put in its place.

The 1992 DPG is cited and included by reference in PNAC's (also wacky) Rebuilding America's Defenses. The National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS), September 2002, which announced what we all know as the Bush Doctrine, is a politico-happy-speak version of Rebuilding and the DPG.

Basically the NSS is a declaration of war on the rest of the world, advising the reader that the USG will squash militarily any nation or group of nations that seek to compete within US empire. It implies we'd even go to war to keep another nation's marginal tax rates low. Complete lunacy!

We can thank Paul, Dick, and Scooter for this, authors and stewards of a policy that has led to so much death and destruction around the world. Perfect guy to lead the vampire-ish World Bank.

[ReadTomPaine]

7. Eyes wide open.

Wolfowitz's history and attitudes were perfectly clear when he was accepted for the job. Why this reptile wasn't rejected remains a mystery. I'm glad they are at least giving him a difficult time, but this should have been expected from his first day in the role.

[acmavm]

9. How did these arrogant fumbling bumbling MFers end up

running everything???

[annabanana]

12. All that is necessary for evil to triumph

is for good men to do nothing.