Does he get a new girlfriend with this job too? ... Does the job "pay for itself"?

By J. Thomas Duffy

Maybe it's the clarion call of his old colleague, Donald Rumsfeld, that tugs at his heartstrings of public service.

Wolfowitz Returns to U.S. Government as Adviser:

As we said when the job offer was reported in December, the board meets quarterly to provide advice to the secretary of state and one of her deputies based on classified intelligence on some of the most important issues in United States foreign policy today, from Iran to North Korea."

Egad!

The Wolf Man, back, prowling the corridors of State.

Hmmm, Rumsfeld calling for a new Propaganda Agency... Wolfowitz, back at the State Department, advising, among other things, on Iran ...

Do we smell a build-up here? ... Get the old team together, for the final run down the stretch, putting their considerable prevarication skills to use for a push into Iran?

Does the girlfriend get a gig, too?

Are we gearing up to go after the Filipino Monkey?

Will we soon here the rhetoric, from the Wolf Man, or, perhaps the Madam Secretary herself, that a preemptive, offensive entry into Iran will "pay for itself"?

From The Lede, back in December:

"Another official called the reported appointment “amazing.” That comment alluded to Mr. Wolfowitz’s staunch support for the Iraq War when he was deputy secretary of defense under President George W. Bush. He hasn’t won much good will since then, either during a relatively quick rise and fall as World Bank president, or in his current post at a conservative think tank in Washington.

But if nothing else, Mr. Wolfowitz really needs no introduction, especially to his detractors on the blogs, who are a puzzled, angry lot today:

The Next Hurrah: “Condi, is it a coincidence that so many people responsible for gaming the intelligence to get us into Iraq are on your advisory board?”

The Brad Blog: “In Bushworld, incompetence must be rewarded.”

Arms Control Wonk: “Andrew Sullivan has a better line than I can muster.”

Andrew Sullivan: “He’s advising Condi on WMDs. Curveball wasn’t available?”

So far, The Lede has not turned up any bloggers weighing in to support Mr. Wolfowitz."

On the downside, with the protracted, ugly, almost never-ending saga of his resignation from The World Bank, will the next President be able to get him out of this position?

Stay tuned Wolf Fans, this one is surely to be a ever-giving gift!

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Bonus Wolfie Whoppers

Yes, Wolfie, People Will Be Talking, For Years, About You ... The Results - The Garlic Weekly Poll

Larisa Alexandrovna - Scott Ritter: Neocons as Parasites

"Hillary 1984" Video Blogger Takes On Wolfowitz

Andrew Cockburn: The Puppet Who Cleared the Way for Iraq's Destruction

Developing Story! White House Giving World Bank, Wolfowitz Green Light To Blame McNulty; New Strategy Of Leveraging Scandals; Cheney Says Embattled Hero "Definitely In Final Throes" At World Bank

Yeah, it's a head-scratcher for us, too, Wolfie...

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

China's pollution problem

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Not just pollution, genocidal pollution:

About 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air and drinking dirty water, according to a World Bank study.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the Chinese government, the bank's partner in the research project, had asked the lender not to publish the estimates for fear they could trigger social unrest.

Yeah, I'd say some "social unrest" is called for, wouldn't you?

It is apparently "standard practice in research projects conducted with the government for both sides to have a veto over the conclusions," and the Chinese government will no doubt object strenuously to the publication of some of the more disturbing findings, which means they won't be included in the report. Some issues are still "under discussion," according to the World Bank. But what is there to discuss other than China's objections to the publication of the truth? Besides, "the study's estimate of premature deaths from airborne pollution, although shocking, [is] broadly in line with earlier published World Bank research and with recent findings by Chinese academics".

And if air and water pollution isn't bad enough: "The World Bank is also concerned by indoor air pollution, principally breathing in fumes from coal-burning stoves and cooking oil. Its experts estimate that as many as 300,000 Chinese a year die prematurely in this way."

Let's do some math: 460,000 + 300,000 = 760,000.

Now, China's a big place, population-wise. Indeed, its current population is estimated to be 1,321,851,888 -- this from the CIA's World Factbook (and the CIA never lies -- seriously, this is likely accurate).

For comparison's sake, let's see what this would mean in American terms. The current population of the U.S. is estimated to be 301,139,947 -- this from the same source.

This means that the population of China is 4.39 times the population of the U.S.

So: 760,000 / 4.39 = 173,121.

Imagine what the response would be -- and what the demands on public policy would be, assuming that Republicans didn't consider it all a hoax -- if 173,121 Americans died every year from such pollution. (And consider also what other forms of pollution there are in China that are also killing large numbers of people.)

Horrifying. But such is the reality of today's China, an emerging superpower to rival the U.S.

Another neocon at The World Bank

By Michael J.W. Stickings

President Bush has tapped Robert Zoellick, Goldman Sachs executive and former deputy secretary of state, to head The World Bank. And because Bush says so, it's a go. It is the president of the United States who nominates the World Bank president -- and the position is always given to an American -- but any nomination is merely a formality. The banks's executive board will appoint Zoellick just as it appoints (i.e., rubber stamps) every other nominee.

There is no good reason for this to be the case. Why should the president of the United States be the one effectively to fill the position with his (or her) own nominee? Why should the position always go to an American? Why, more specifically, should the position always go to a partisan of the president?

Well, of course, because The World Bank is an instrument of American global hegemony. It always has been. That was the original intent, for all intents and purposes, and nothing has changed. If other countries approved of this, it was only because they approved of American global hegemony at least to some degree. This should change. China, Brazil, South Africa, India, and Russia, along with others, are right to call for a new and open process to select World Bank presidents. But the U.S. will refuse. Why would it agree to have its hegemonic position weakened? (It's already doing a stellar job weakening itself.)

For, though, it's Zoellick, and people seem to be happy with his nomination. He's no Wolfowitz, after all -- though, of course, pretty much anyone would have been an improvement over the outgoing president. And is there good reason for them to be happy? Perhaps. He seems to know where Africa is, which is good, and he has already presented himself as an internationalist. An American internationalist, but still. Even the European seem to like him.

BUT: Let's not give him a free pass just yet. He's a Wall Street insider whose emphasis may turn out to be on maximizing Wall Street profits. And there's more. He may be presenting himself as an internationalist, and he may be receiving a warm welcome because he's not Wolfowitz, but, like Wolfowitz, he's a committed neoconservative. (See here.)

He was, for example, one of the signatories to a now-infamous 1998 letter from the Project for the New American Century to President Clinton calling for "the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power". The other signatories amounted to a who's-who of the neocon movement and Bush foreign policy team, including Bill Kristol, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Richard Perle, and, yes, Paul Wolfowitz. Indeed, though he may very well be more of an internationalist than some of his nationalist neocon brethren, he has long been an enthusiastic supporter of the neocon movement and of Bush's foreign policy, including the Iraq War and the war on terror. His own writings show that he sounded a lot like Bush well before Bush himself ever did.

What this means is that whatever his commitment to international development, which may be genuine, and whatever his commitment to Wall Street, which may be profound, it is likely that Zoellick will use his position as World Bank president to advance what he perceives to be American national self-interest. Like other neocons, he is something of a neo-Wilsonian idealist, but, also like them, he is first and foremost an American nationalist who believes in American exceptionalism and the prospect of -- and (PNAC) project for -- American global hegemony. The neocons like to think of such hegemony as benevolent, but much of the rest of the world, and many Americans themselves, know that this is a sham.

Which is not to say that Zoellick's World Bank presidency will be overtly malevolent. It's just that in many important ways Zoellick is just like his soon-to-be predecessor. And that should be of serious concern not just to critics of neoconservatism, and there are many of us, but to everyone who desires a global community, and development within that community, that is not ultimately subservient to American nationalism.

Wolfie's blame game

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Because he's a Bushie, and because Bushies must be Bushies, and because Bushies avoid taking responsibility for anything and everything they do that fails, which is pretty much anything and everything, Paul Wolfowitz has come to the conclusion, the only conclusion that could make any real sense to him, the only conclusion that could allow him to avoid responsibility for his actions, that he did nothing wrong at The World Bank, nothing at all that would justify what has happened to him, namely, his resignation (i.e., firing).

Like the Bush Administration -- like Bush himself, who rallied to Wolfowitz's defence and, in so doing, protected one of his own even in the face of mounting international criticism -- Wolfowitz prefers to place the blame anywhere but on himself. And the scapegoat this time? The media:

The outgoing president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, has told the BBC an "overheated" atmosphere at the bank and in the media forced him to resign.

*****

Speaking to the BBC World Service, Mr Wolfowitz denied that his own actions were the root cause of his departure.

"I'm pleased that finally the board did accept that I acted in good faith and acted ethically," he said.

"I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about."

Actually, though, a World Bank panel determined that Wolfowitz in fact "broke World Bank laws" and that there was a conflict of interest in his efforts to help his girlfriend, Shaha Riza. Indeed, the panel "ruled he had broken the bank's code of conduct and violated the terms of his contract". As to his claim that he acted "in good faith and acted ethically," the banks board of directors "accepted [his] assurances," according to the BBC, but nonetheless "acknowledged that a 'number of mistakes' had been made". The bank's staff association put it more bluntly: "He has damaged the institution and continues to damage it every day that he remains as its president."

Wolfowitz was given the opportunity to save face and resign rather than face being censured or fired. Essentially, he had no choice but to resign. And it wasn't because of a hostile media environment. He was shown the exit because he had irreparably damaged his credibility, acted unethically, violated the bank's own rules, and weakened the bank itself. Simply put, he could not be left in power.

Just as he once said that he could not imagine why more troops would be needed after the fall of Saddam's regime than for the invasion itself, that is, just as he could not imagine what could go wrong during the American occupation of post-Saddam Iraq, Wolfowitz cannot imagine that he did anything wrong at The World Bank. It is the sort of arrogance that cannot admit of failure. And it is the sort of hubris that characterizes Bushies everywhere and that has come to define the Bush presidency. He may be a scoundrel, but he is just like all the rest.

Responsibility and resignation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Wolfowitz is out -- soon:

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has resigned his post, effective June 30.

An internal panel tasked with investigating the lucrative pay and promotion package Wolfowitz arranged in 2005 for girlfriend Shaha Riza found him guilty of breaking bank rules.

The committee also found that he tried to hide the salary and promotion package from top ethics and legal officials within the bank. The report added that there is a "crisis in the leadership" at the World Bank.

Wolfowitz is the first World Bank president to ever leave the bank under a cloud of scandal.

Yet he doesn't seem to think he did anything wrong. You've got to admit, he's consistent in his cluelessness. But at least this mess will soon be over.

The photo above is from the White House. With Wolfowitz embroiled in scandal and soon to resign, let's remind ourselves what President Bush said about him on March 16, 2005, upon his appointment to head The World Bank:

Paul Wolfowitz is a proven leader and experienced diplomat, who will guide the World Bank effectively and honorably during a critical time in history -- both for the Bank and the developing nations it supports.

Well, that didn't quite work out. Bush went on to praise Wolfowitz's "experience" and "skills," as well as his allegedly "deep understanding of developmental issues and economic and political reform," but, however excessive that praise, what he will now be remembered for most is being completely wrong about the Iraq War and reducing The World Bank to a state of crisis by acting unethically and trying to cover it up.

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving man.

For Wolfowitz, the end is near

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I posted my thoughts on The Wolfowitz Affair last night, and here's the latest from WaPo:

The World Bank's executive board is negotiating the resignation of embattled President Paul D. Wolfowitz, senior bank officials said this afternoon.

The sources said that under the terms being discussed, Wolfowitz would step down, ending the ethics controversy that has consumed the bank for weeks, while the board would credit him for some achievements as president of the global poverty-fighting institution, including a sharpened focus on aiding Africa and stemming corruption.

The Bush Administration is apparently "helping broker the terms" and is "eager to see the matter resolved swiftly," but -- and this shows its wagon-circling priorities -- it had been working on "finding Wolfowitz a face-saving way out," whereby "the bank's board [would have reprimanded] but not [fired] Wolfowitz for engineering and covering up a substantial raise for his girlfriend, with the bank expressly sharing some of the blame for the ethics controversy".

In typical fashion, then, the Bush Administration was trying to avoid responsibility and deflect accountability while protecting one of its own. But the bank, much to its credit, "rejected that formulation in discussions last night and today". And consider this: "The Bush administration appeared to be virtually alone in supporting Wolfowitz. Nearly all board members have endorsed the findings of the committee's report, officials said, with even Canada -- traditionally a reliable U.S. ally -- breaking with the Bush administration."

(Bush. Alone. Again. What else is new?)

Which means that the end is near for Wolfowitz at The World Bank. If he doesn't resign -- and the window seems to be open -- he will likely be subjected to a vote of no confidence or fired. And so his resignation is inevitable. It's just a matter of when.

(CNN has more here, ABC here.)

The Wolfowitz Affair

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't yet posted on the Wolfowitz scandal at The World Bank, but I can't resist quoting this piece in The Telegraph:

Paul Wolfowitz, the embattled World Bank chief, launched into a threatening tirade against members of his staff when news of his controversial pay and promotion package for his girlfriend began to leak out, it emerged yesterday.

The revelation was one of the more damning elements of a report by a special investigative panel, which concluded that the scandal "had a dramatic, negative effect on the reputation and credibility" of the bank.

The whole affair is "banal and tawdry," as Heraclitus put it a while ago, and I tend to agree. Is it bad? Yes. Is it that bad? Well, no. What is that bad is the scandal, not the "pay and promotion package," which is precisely what the report implies.

To the extent that Wolfowitz has damaged the credibility of the institution, not to mention whatever was left of his own credibility after his role in getting the Iraq War off the ground, he would do well to resign. As The Washington Post is reporting, after all, the report determines that "[his] actions manifest a lack of understanding for and a disregard for the institution as a public international organization," and that he may no longer "be able to provide the leadership needed to ensure that the bank continues to operate to the fullest extent possible".

Matthew Yglesias is right to point out that "hypocrisy matters" -- consider the extent of hypocrisy in the White House and throughout the Bush Administration, for example, as well as on the religious right -- but I do think that some of Wolfowitz's critics are exaggerating their criticism in this case because he "was an architect of the Iraq War," as James Kirchick wrote at The Plank (in a post that I otherwise find to be excessively apologetic). If it had been some random economist who had given his girlfriend a raise and a promotion, or if it had been a Democrat, would the criticism be what it is now? If it had been a Democrat, Republicans would be exaggerating their criticism. If it had been some randon economist, I doubt anyone would be paying much attention. (It would be yet another scandal at an international institution, just like any of the usual scandals at the U.N.) In other words, hypocrisy matters, but so does partisanship.

Which is not to say that the partisans are wrong. Far from it. Whatever the motives of some of his critics, Wolfowitz acted in an inappropriate, and indeed unethical, manner, and he is now embroiled in a scandal that has tarnished the institution of which he is the head, this according to the institution itself. Wolfowitz has fought back in force, rejecting calls for his regisnation (or firing), but a report at ABC News suggests that "all options are on the table" for the White House, that "it is an open question" whether he will remain in the job. Even the White House realizes that Wolfowitz's position is untenable, that the scandal has simply grown too large to dismiss. Bush has expressed his support for Wolfowitz in the past, and just recently, but, as Sir Humphrey once remarked, you have to get behind someone before you stab them in the back.

Wolfowitz is likely done, but it won't be because of Iraq or because of any policy failure at The World Bank. That may be fine for some, but -- and I say this as someone who dislikes Wolfowitz immensely -- I'm not so sure.

He has done far worse in other capacities, and in more serious ways, but perhaps such an undignified end is some sort of justice after all.