Calls for Wolfowitz to resign: full text
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Paul Wolfowitz, 63, the president of the World Bank, on May 17, 2007, announced his resignation, following a ruling on May 14 that he had broken the banks code of ethics, staff rules, and his own contract. Wolfowitz had been accused of damaging the bank’s credibility and violating its internal rules by dictating the terms of a promotion and pay rise for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza (a bank employee), when she was seconded to an external assignment. Riza had been assigned to a new post, outside the bank, in 2005 when Wolfowitz assumed the bank’s presidency, because the multinational lending institution’s internal rules on ethics prohibited personal relationships between employees and their supervisors. The US government on May 15 had indicated that it would agree to Wolfowitz's resigning from the World Bank but that it continued to support him.
Immediate context
Wolfowitz was nominated as a candidate for the bank’s presidency in March 2005 by US President George W. Bush, after James Wolfensohn, the bank’s incumbent president, had announced in February 2005 that he was stepping down upon the expiry of his second five-year term in May 2005. Wolfowitz’s nomination was said to have been unpopular with World Bank staff, and his record as an agressive advocate of US unilateralism also raised widespread concerns over his suitability for the post. The controversy over Riza’s pay rise and promotion was compounded by--and also appeared to undermine--an aggressive anti-corruption campaign, which Wolfowitz had promoted since taking office in May 2005.
Wolfowitz was a controversial figure and the subject of frequent criticism amongst opponents and critics of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, principally because he was widely regarded as one of its proponents. In October 2003, whilst Wolfowitz was visiting Baghdad (the Iraqi capital) as part of his duties as deputy US defence secretary, the Rashid Hotel, where he was staying, was attacked by air-to-ground missiles, during which one senior US officer was killed and a dozen other people were injured. Wolfowitz escaped unharmed.
Reaction and outlook
Wolfowitz on April 12 refused to resign the presidency but he conceded that he had made a "mistake", for which he was "sorry", albeit after initially refusing to admit to his role in the affair. Pressure on Wolfowitz intensified when the World Bank staff association, also on April 12, called for his resignation, and on April 25, when the European Parliament (EP) approved a resolution urging Germany and the USA to ask him to stand down. Officials from the US administration of President Bush were isolated in their support for the embattled former deputy US defence secretary. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on April 13 said that he held Wolfowitz in "very high regard", whilst other US officials repeatedly declared Bush’s confidence in his former colleague.
In a letter to Wolfowitz and the bank’s executive board on April 26, 32 senior World Bank officials expressed grave concerns over their ability to implement the institution’s anti-corruption strategy, warning that the "credibility" of the bank was "eroding" because of concerns over its ability to "practice what it preaches" on "integrity and governance". The controversy sparked intense speculation over Wolfowitz’s future at the bank, including the possibility of him being succeeded--in the event of his resignation or dismissal--by Trevor Manuel, the South African finance minister, or Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Nigerian finance minister and foreign minister (traditionally, the post of World Bank president was held by a US official).
Historical context
Wolfowitz first entered US politics in the early 1970s as a liberal-minded intellectual, serving in low-level governmental positions in the US administrations of Richard Nixon (1969-74) and Jimmy Carter (1977-81). Also in the 1970s, Wolfowitz served as an aide to Henry Jackson, a former US Senator who was renowned for his hardline positions against communism (during the era of the former Soviet Union) and strong support for Israel. Some analysts believed that it was Jackson who had influenced the emergence of "neo-conservatism" in the USA, a brand of right-wing political philosophy that supported conservative policies as a reaction to the social changes of the 1960-70s. By the early 1980s, Wolfowitz, disillusioned with the Carter administration and positioned as a prominent "neo-con", was appointed to a senior position in the US State Department, during the administration of Ronald Reagan (1981-89). He also served as a senior figure in the administration of George H. Bush (1989-93), before re-emerging in February 2001, when he was nominated as George W. Bush’s deputy defence secretary.
