Wolfowitz's Days May Be Numbered
Bank insiders say that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz's fate could be decided any day now.
Faced with an uphill battle to keep his job, Wolfowitz went before a special committee of the 24-member executive board this morning to defend his role in giving a pay raise and promotion to his companion, Shaha Riza.
Wolfowitz, a former Defense Department official, has been under fire for most of his nearly two-year term as bank president. Detractors at the bank have bristled at his reliance on several key advisers and also have opposed his high-profile anticorruption campaign. At today's meeting, Wolfowitz is expected to argue that he sought to recuse himself in dealing with Riza's personnel situation but was told by the ethics committee to handle the matter.
Bank documents show that she was transferred to the State Department and given a healthy raise. The special committee will make a recommendation on Wolfowitz's fate to the board; how the matter will be resolved is anybody's guess. One insider speculated: "It looks like stick a fork in him and he's done."
But Wolfowitz does not want to resign. One option, say bank sources, is for directors to place him on paid administrative leave and name an acting president. If that happens, board sources speculate, his replacement might be a European or perhaps Graeme Wheeler, a New Zealander and bank vice president who is well liked by many bank traditionalists.
"What does this do for American leadership of the bank?" asks the bank insider. Traditionally, the U.S. president nominates the bank's president. But another insider, critical of Wolfowitz, says by putting Wolfowitz on the shelf, the bank's board would "detach and uncouple the crisis from the bank's business."
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