DISPATCH FROM WASHINGTON
By: Abdillahi Alawy
Four days after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, President George W Bush summoned his top national-security advisers to Camp David to plot for an America's retaliation. Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, then a 57-year-old Deputy Defense Secretary, presented a cleverly scripted proposal for America to go to war not only in Afghanistan but all the way to Iraq.
The good doctor argued that Afghanistan is symbolically important, but Iraq was simply the unfinished work that American must pursue. Wolfowitz succeeded in convincing everybody at the meeting to go to Iraq. And it was from this meeting that he came to be known as the chief architect of the Iraq war.
In early 2005, during Bush’s second term, Dr. Wolfowitz was rewarded by an appointment to the World Bank as its president. But even before this appointment, Dr. Wolfowitz's girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a Libyan by birth, Saudi Arabia raised, British citizen, and Oxford educated, worked at the Bank’s headquarters here in Washington.
When Dr. Wolfowitz joined the Bank, she had to be transferred since the Bank’s policy stipulates that one can not supervise a romantic partner. Therefore, he transferred her to the State Department and signed a memo that gave Ms. Riza a tax-free salary of $193,590, according to the Government Accountability Project. This salary is more than the $183,500 paid to Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Essentially Ms. Riza’s new boss at the State Department, Dr. Rice, earned $10,000 less than Wolfowitz’s girlfriend at her own department.
When information on Riza’s pay package was leaked out, it turned a lot of heads and prompted accusations of favouritism from bank employees. After much discussion within the ranks of the Bank, the staff association loudly protested against Dr. Wolfowitz. They wanted him to resign because they claimed that this scandal exhibited poor governance by their leader.
Dr. Wolfowitz’s definition of good governance is "the combination of transparent and accountable institutions, strong skills and competence, and a fundamental willingness to do the right thing". He gave this definition in a speech he read in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2006. During the Reagan administration, Dr. Wolfowitz served as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, the fourth largest country in the world and the largest in the Muslim world. During this three-year diplomatic stint in the 1980s, Dr. Wolfowitz distinguished himself as the most effective and incorruptible leader of his time.
To Mr. Wolfowitz, corruption is defined as the abuse of public provision for private gain. Jim Wolfensohn, Mr Wolfowitz's predecessor at the World Bank, simply defined corruption as "a cancer on the development process". Like the infamous corruption promise to Kenyans by our brand new president in 2003, for the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz wanted to become the anti-corruption president. He even embraced John Githongo, the former Kenya government Ethics PS, with all the pomp when they met for a well advertised dinner last year.
But just this week Mr. Paul Wolfowitz has retained the services of Robert Bennett, a high profile Washington lawyer whose list of former clients include former president Bill Clinton. When someone in Washington hires Mr. Bennett, you know that they are in deep trouble-- and it is not a good sign in this capital city of strange politics.
The entry of Mr. Bennett is due to the fact that the 24-member governing board at the Bank is currently evaluating whether Dr. Wolfowitz abused his position in promoting and approving generous pay rises for his girlfriend. As of Wednesday this week, Germany, a powerful partner of the bank, unambiguously asked for Dr. Wolfowitz’s resignation. And, after an initial statement of support for Dr. Wolfowitz, the White House has remained very quiet lately.
The scandal has all the definitions of nepotism laced in a 21st century wars, passions and an intriguing international love-affair only imaginable in high class spy novels. It is even juicier that a Muslim divorcee with Middle-eastern roots is tangled in a love affair with none other than Dr. War himself. Hollywood will never script a finer screenplay.
To Mr. Wolfowitz, corruption is defined as the abuse of public provision for private gain. Jim Wolfensohn, Mr Wolfowitz's predecessor at the World Bank, simply defined corruption as "a cancer on the development process". Like the infamous corruption promise to Kenyans by our brand new president in 2003, for the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz wanted to become the anti-corruption president. He even embraced John Githongo, the former Kenya government Ethics PS, with all the pomp when they met for a well advertised dinner last year.
But just this week Mr. Paul Wolfowitz has retained the services of Robert Bennett, a high profile Washington lawyer whose list of former clients include former president Bill Clinton. When someone in Washington hires Mr. Bennett, you know that they are in deep trouble-- and it is not a good sign in this capital city of strange politics.
The entry of Mr. Bennett is due to the fact that the 24-member governing board at the Bank is currently evaluating whether Dr. Wolfowitz abused his position in promoting and approving generous pay rises for his girlfriend. As of Wednesday this week, Germany, a powerful partner of the bank, unambiguously asked for Dr. Wolfowitz’s resignation. And, after an initial statement of support for Dr. Wolfowitz, the White House has remained very quiet lately.
The scandal has all the definitions of nepotism laced in a 21st century wars, passions and an intriguing international love-affair only imaginable in high class spy novels. It is even juicier that a Muslim divorcee with Middle-eastern roots is tangled in a love affair with none other than Dr. War himself. Hollywood will never script a finer screenplay.
Nepotism as a form of corruption is rampant in developing nations. The vice has been difficult to contain even within the powerful multi lateral institutions. For example, current and past United Nations secretaries-general have had to deal with this issue all the time. Such has also been the case at the Bank. For example, reports confirm that until 2005, the wife of the World Bank's Managing Director, Shengman Zhang of China, worked directly under him. Also the World Bank employed a brother of its Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Nicholas Stern of Britain. It goes without saying that these acts violate the Bank’s own rules against employing siblings. Shockingly, even the president of the institution is practicing what he set to wipe.
Therefore, it is very unsettling that Dr. Wolfowitz has been exposed in this light. His leadership at the Bank asserted very strong anti-corruption messages. He was openly against making grants to corrupt governments who use funds meant for the poor to enrich themselves.
It is for this reason that Kenya’s funds from the Bank have sometimes been withheld for months on that pretext. And, for someone as deeply involved in the Iraq quagmire, we believed that Dr. Wolfowitz had seized an opportunity to rebuild the world on a legacy equal to that of a previous Bank’s president in Robert McNamara. McNamara used the Bank as his springboard from the Vietnam mistakes. However, the road does not look bright for this Washington insider because his own actions at the Bank raise a lot of questions.
It is for this reason that Kenya’s funds from the Bank have sometimes been withheld for months on that pretext. And, for someone as deeply involved in the Iraq quagmire, we believed that Dr. Wolfowitz had seized an opportunity to rebuild the world on a legacy equal to that of a previous Bank’s president in Robert McNamara. McNamara used the Bank as his springboard from the Vietnam mistakes. However, the road does not look bright for this Washington insider because his own actions at the Bank raise a lot of questions.
Clearly, if one wants to seriously fight corruption in the developing world or anywhere for that matter, one has to be irreproachable himself. That is why many African presidents have failed to wipe the vice—including in Kenya where the current government is facing major challenges with regard to the expanded nepotistic culture of tribalism.
But, when the World Bank president hugged and praised John Githongo last year his message was clear to President Mwai Kibaki that we, Wolfowitz and Githongo are clean and you, Kibaki and your government are not. But God has a way of turning the tables and embarrassing all of us in many ways!
It is very likely that Dr. Wolfowitz is on his way out and that may return some credibility to the Bank. However, if there is anybody who knows his way in Washington it is Paul Wolfowitz. If he manages to hug onto his job, then, for sure, the Bank’s credibility will continue to erode onto spotty territories that will be hard to wash-off.
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