Wolfowitz Clashed Repeatedly With World Bank Staff

[ck4829]

As he prepared to sign a five-year contract as World Bank president in the spring of 2005, Paul Wolfowitz sent his personal lawyer, Robert Barnett, to negotiate the terms. Barnett, whose high-profile clients have included some of Washington's biggest political and media figures, did not mince words in his meetings with the bank's legal team.

Wolfowitz wanted more than a dozen amendments to the standard contract that had served the institution for decades, Barnett told them, including special dispensation for the books he would write and the paid speeches he planned to deliver, and a salary on par with that of the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, who was traditionally more highly paid.

A final sticking point, conveyed in all capital letters in an e-mail to then-general counsel Roberto Dañino, was Wolfowitz's insistence that, while he had earlier offered to recuse himself from all office matters involving bank employee and his girlfriend Shaha Riza, he insisted on retaining retain "professional contact" with her -- something that the executive board later determined was a clear conflict of interest under personnel rules.

The Riza issue has come back to haunt Wolfowitz, as the bank's executive board is now considering what to do about revelations -- contained in documents it released Friday -- that Wolfowitz resolved the issue by personally arranging a bank salary and promotions for her in a temporary State Department post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401564.html

[Erika]

1. Republican morality. It's OK for us to give our gals cushy jobs

But these democrats are immoral. They are immoral all the time, every time. But Riza was "really good".

Republican bushbots are nauseating.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Pauly is TOAST...he can go lick his friggen comb....Inept and Arrogant...he is revealed

[Bozita]

6. Riza was "really good". ... At what?

I'm thinking back to the Clinton years and impeachable offenses.

Anybody got a clue?

[PassingFair]

3. Who is applying the crowbar to Wolfowitz?

The Europeans? The Carlyle gang?

Anybody?

[Kagemusha]

4. Do you know why he got the job in the first place?

Because it was America's turn, and Bush put his foot down and glared at other nations and said, "This is MY man. You WILL accept him."

So from the start he was someone to be suffered. If the Europeans go after him, the President will take it as a personal insult. I think that they'd rather leave it to the World Bank board and keep their hands as clean as possible.

[PassingFair]

5. I figured he was installed by corporate powers-that-be...

but I don't know if they "be"
European Union/Rothschild money or
Carlyle Goonies (or even if there's
a difference!)

[Kagemusha]

7. He was installed by the US government despite deep reservations

because the US wouldn't budge on this being the US' man and the thought of going out of order was unthinkable - the US might remove ALL support from the World Bank in that case, and that wouldn't help the world's poor any, would it? So they (edit: The rest of the nations with a real say at the World Bank, including all of the EU) gritted their teeth, allowed Wolfowitz to take the job and hoped he wouldn't mess it up TOO much.

[PassingFair]

8. Can they vomit him out over this? n/t

[Kagemusha]

9. We can only hope.

I certainly am hoping.