“Lingering Shockwaves of 9/11 on America and the World”

It doesn’t seem like the rest of the world is about to stand down on its suspicion and mistrust of the Bush White House. For many, that mistrust stemmed from the Bush administration's preference for muscular conduct of foreign policy that culminated in what a good proportion of people still regard as the unwarranted invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. The refusal or the inability of Mr. Bush, his administration, the present and former central players therein to realize that as a fact is complicating their inability to engage the rest of the world with credibility. The continuing rocky tenure of Mr. Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president ever since he was nominated by Mr. Bush is a clearly a good pointer in that regard.

From the very outset when he arrived at his World Bank post, Mr. Wolfowitz who as the deputy Secretary of Defense was one of the architects and ardent proponents of the invasion of Iraq has been literally without sleep. Stories began to appear in major newspapers from the outset detailing the uneasy and suspicion of his intentions at the Bank by many of its employees. Two of his former aides at the Pentagon who he brought along with him are said to throw their weight around the place in ways that have stirred resentment in Bank employees. He has been accused of making unilateral decisions to disrupt loans to certain countries on the grounds that their governments are corrupt.

But the matter that became a serious bone of contention is his involvement in the transfer of his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza to a position from the Bank to the US State Department with a salary increase that placed her on an annual non-taxable salary of $132,000 to $193,590, $10,000 more than US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. At first Mr. Wolfowitz simply dismissed the allegation of impropriety with claims that he had nothing to do with the decision on Ms. Riza’s transfer and salary, and that the appropriate office of the Bank was consulted and approved of it.

Only yesterday just as the Bank’s 24-member executive board was in session in Washington, DC preparing for the annual meeting scheduled for this weekend, Mr. Wolfowitz emerged with an apology for his role in the saga of Ms. Riza’s transfer and salary. His statement read inter alia: “I made a mistake, for which I am sorry”. He expressed his willingness to abide by whatever decision that would emanate from the board by way of sanction. His biggest challenge appears to come from the Bank’s staff association which insists that he has out-lived his usefulness, because he “destroyed the staff’s trust in his leadership” and “compromised the integrity and effectiveness” of the Bank through his unethical involvement in the Ms Riza saga. The staff association was responsible for pushing for the investigation that revealed that he was short on the details of his role in the Ms. Riza saga. His attempt yesterday to address about 200 Bank staffers ended unexpectedly when they started chanting for him to “Resign, Resign”. The board itself has promptly indicated that it will move expeditiously to resolve the fate of Mr. Wolfowitz at the Bank. It doesn’t seem like he’d be forced to resign, though.

He certainly refused to realize that the Bank was an arena quite different from the Pentagon. That may have blinded him on the need to curb the impunity with which he engaged the world from the Pentagon. He must have sensed that his past and role at the Pentagon may be part of his undoing at the Bank when he said: “For those people who disagree with the things that they associate with me in my previous job, I’m not in my previous job”. Calls have come from The Financial Times for his resignation. If he retains his job, his effectiveness at the Bank will depend considerably on his willingness to dissociate himself from the grand and reckless agenda that many in the world associate with the Bush White House, and to instruct those aides he brought with him from the Pentagon to modify their arrogance accordingly.