World bank President Paul Wolfowitz launched an attack on his detractors yesterday and claimed that he was a victim of a ’smear campaign.’ Appearing before a panel of the bank’s executive board, he defended himself vigorously and said that the charges of ethical lapses leveled against him were ‘unfair and untrue.’
Wolfowitz’s defense:
In his statement to the panel, Wolfowitz said:
The goal of this smear campaign, I believe, is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am an ineffective leader and must step down for that reason alone, even if the ethics charges are unwarranted. I, for one, will not give in to such tactics. And, I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest.
Regarding his future at the World Bank, he adopted a more conciliatory tone and said that he would discus resignation only if the board cleared him of misconduct. He said:
Only when the cloud of these unfair and untrue charges is removed, will it truly be possible to determine objectively whether I can be an effective leader of the World Bank.
The meeting with the seven-member panel, chaired by Dutch director Herman Wijffels, lasted approximately two hours. Wolfowitz participated in the meeting along with his attorney, Robert Bennett. The meeting saw Wolfowitz abandon his earlier efforts of trying to rescue the situation with an apology and instead he went in for a stronger stance. He challenged the board’s ethics committee to examine all the details surrounding the employment of his girlfriend Shaha Riza. He claimed that he had acted in good faith in securing her a promotion and pay raise. He told the panel:
I acted transparently, sought and received guidance from the bank’s ethics committee and conducted myself in good faith in accordance with that guidance.
Shaha Riza’s comments:
The panel - appointed to look into the allegations of favoritism shown by Wolfowitz while handling the promotion and pay package of Riza in 2005 - also met Shaha Riza later in the day. Riza said that she had been discriminated against by the bank:
...not only because I am a woman, but because I am a Muslim Arab woman who dares to question the status quo both in the work of the institution and within the institution itself.
Riza said she could not understand why she was singled out for such treatment when in 2005 the bank’s then-Managing Director Shengman Zhang’s wife, Lingzhi Xu, also worked at bank, and, previously, so did Maritta Koch-Weser, the wife of former managing director Caio Koch-Weser. She added that the ‘media circus’ over the issue has done “significant harm to my career, my personal well-being and my prospects to continue the work I love.”
Other parties’ take on the issue:
Meanwhile, President Bush once again came out in favor of Wolfowitz and said in an interview:
My position is that he ought to stay. He ought to be given a fair hearing.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declined to support Wolfowitz and said:
This ought to be a very transparent, very candid conversation. This is where I think this issue belongs.
Whatever be the take of leaders on the issue, the fact of the matter is that Paul Wolfowitz has lost all support amongst the employees of the bank. He must realize that he is casting aspersions over the internal functioning of the bank and that his resignation would be in larger interest of the bank.
With the panel taking time to probe and discuss, only time will tell if this story has a ‘happy ending’ in store for Wolfowitz and Riza, after all.
