A Difficult Meeting

Filed under: Iraq, Neoconservatives, Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank — Michael van der Galien on April 25, 2007 @ 8:30 pm CEST

It seems that Paul Wolfowitz has quite a difficult time at a meeting between himself and his top managers at the World Bank last week. He, first, confessed: “I understand that I’ve lost a lot of trust, and I want to build that trust back up.” After which one of his top deputies - Graeme Wheeler, the bank’s managing director - made clear that “Wolfowitz was wrong to think that the furor over his leadership sprang only from his handling of the pay and promotion for his companion or from unease over his support of the Iraq war while at the Pentagon.”

It goes, Wheeler explained, deeper than that:

He said it arose from a range of issues, including fears that Mr. Wolfowitz and his aides were trying to impose Bush administration ideas on family planning and climate change at the bank and worries over a possible conflict of interest in the bank’s hiring of a Washington law firm, Williams & Connolly, to investigate leaks. A partner at the firm had earlier negotiated Mr. Wolfowitz’s employment contract with the bank.

He also said that ‘the fight over whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank amounted to the “the biggest crisis in its history”,’ and that ‘Wolfowitz’s staying on would cause “fantastic damage” to the bank’s reputation and effectiveness.’

Robert B. Holland III, a Texas businessman, a Wolfowitz support explained that, according to him (and many people like him): “There is no one issue that is motivating people. There is a built-in ideological opposition to Wolfowitz that was there from day one. The opposition has been looking for any opportunity to exploit to get him out of there.”

Which is, I think, true. The more I read about it, the more convinced I am that quite some people who know go after Wolfowitz so aggressively, oppose Wolfowitz on ideological / political grounds, the current controversy is, for these people, simply an excuse to do what they wanted to do all along.

That being said, that does not mean that their case is week. The fact of the matter is that Wolfowitz screwed up bigtime (he should never have given them this ammo), that he damaged the image of the World Bank, that Europeans are calling for his resignation, that many Americans are calling for his resignation, and that his own organization has lost all trust in him / his abilities.

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1 kritter

April 25, 2007 @ 11:13 pm CEST

If there was so much opposition to him, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to get him out, maybe he wasn’t a good choice from the beginning. The issue is the same as it is with Gonzales- will he be able to be effective from here on out if he’s lost so much credibility?

2 Interested

April 26, 2007 @ 12:02 am CEST

this is the World Bank with Wolfowitz vs United States Government with Gonzalez Kim.

3 Interested

April 26, 2007 @ 12:13 am CEST

Here’s a link to the World Bank’s structure by member countries.

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK:20040580~menuPK:1696997~pagePK:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html

4 kritter

April 26, 2007 @ 2:33 am CEST

I know that interested- but the issue that is the same is- can Wolfowitz still be effective at the WB- with so much opposition against him and the ethics problem which does not seem to be dying down- or will it be too much of a distraction?

For Gonzales- will he be able to be effective at DOJ or will the poor morale within the dept and the ethics problem which does not seem to be dying down prove to be too much of a distraction?

Same issue- two different organizations.

5 Interested

April 26, 2007 @ 3:17 am CEST

your main point appeared to be.

Kritter

If there was so much opposition to him, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to get him out, maybe he wasn’t a good choice from the beginning.

That’s a silly question really. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was today, 9/10/2001, or 9/10/1999, 9/10/1985. If the President of the world bank engaged in what Wolfowitz did than the same outrage would be happening.

Different issue, different people, different organizations, different situations.