Bush to pick Wolfowitz for World Bank

[vulturesrow]

Read today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal Online.

[BCPVP]

Thanks Vulturesrow!
For more info, along with Vulture's pick check here:
Banking on Wolfowitz WSJ
Sheep in Wolf's Clothing Slate
Democrats for Wolfowitz Weekly Standard
Exactly What the World Bank Needs L.A. Times
A New Boss for the Bank Washington Post

[sirio11]

Comblicker video

[BCPVP]

How exactly is this relevant to the qualifications of Wolfowitz to head the World Bank?

Oh yeah, it's not. Is it too much asking that posts relate in some way to the thread they're in?

[IrishHand]

A little extreme but (sadly) there is some truth to it:

--------------------------------------------

March 16th, 2005 4:06 pm
Top 10 Reasons Why Paul Wolfowitz Would Make a Good World Bank
President


By John Cavanagh / Institute for Policy Studies

1. He would follow in the great tradition of World Bank president Robert McNamara, who also helped kill tens of thousands of people in a poor country most Americans couldn't find on a map before getting the job.

2. It helps to be a good liar when you run an institution with employees who earn over $100,000 a year to pretend to help billions of people who live on less than $1 a day.

3. With all his experience helping U.S. companies grab Iraq's oil profits, he's got just the right experience for doling out lucrative World Bank contracts to U.S. businesses.

4. After predecessor James Wolfensohn blew millions of dollars on "consultations" with citizen groups to give the appearance of openness, Wolfowitz's tough-guy style is just what's needed to rid the World Bank of those irritating activists.

5. Unlike former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, another one of the four leading candidates, at least Wolfowitz hasn't failed at running a Fortune 500 company.

6. Unlike the Treasury Department's John Taylor, another leading candidate, at least Wolfowitz doesn't want to get rid of the institution he would head.

7. While earning a University of Chicago Ph.D., he was exposed to the tenets of market fundamentalism that have reigned at the World Bank for decades.

8. He has experience in constructing echo chambers where only the advice he wants to hear is spoken.

9. He knows some efficient private contractors who build echo chambers for only a few hundred billion dollars (cost plus, of course).

10. He can develop a pre-emptive poverty doctrine where the World Bank could invade countries that fail to make themselves safe for U.S. business, modeled on the U.S. pre-emptive war doctrine he helped craft.

John Cavanagh is the director of Institute for Policy Studies. For more information about contenders for the World Bank's presidency, visit http://www.worldbankpresident.org

[Dead]

I actually like this idea.

He can do a lot less damage at the helm of the World Bank than he can as deputy Defense Secretary.

[BCPVP]

Thought I'd post this here instead of making a new thread.

New York Times

Wolfowitz Is Confirmed as President of World Bank

By ELIZABETH BECKER

WASHINGTON, March 31 - Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary and one of the Bush administration's earliest advocates of invading Iraq, was unanimously confirmed as the new president of the World Bank today by the institution's executive board.

President Bush nominated Mr. Wolfowitz two weeks ago for the post, which has been held by an American throughout the World Bank's history.

Mr. Wolfowitz said in a statement that "it is humbling to be entrusted with the leadership of this critically important international institution." With 184 member countries, the World Bank provided $20 billion for 245 development projects around the world in 2004 alone. When Mr. Wolfowitz takes over in June for a five-year term, he will immediately face decisions on how to encourage the world's wealthiest nations to increase aid to the poor, meet the United Nations' millennium development goals and offer debt relief to the world's poorest nations.

A former professor of political science and dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Mr. Wolfowitz brings to his new position a varied career experience that included serving important posts in the State and Defense Departments under President Reagan and the first President Bush and a well-earned reputation for promoting the spread of American-style democracy, even with the use of American military might, around the world.

Despite this reputation and the loud criticism it engendered in Europe and by nongovernmental groups that champion aid for the poor, Mr. Wolfowitz's selection to become the 10th president of the international development institution was never in doubt.

Japan, Germany, France and Britain signed off almost immediately on his appointment and no country offered an alternative candidate, not even the nations of the developing world.

As one European official put it, "No one was enthusiastic but no one was fighting."

For his part, Mr. Wolfowitz mounted a serious campaign to convince all of the 24 executive directors of the institution that he understood the mission of the world's leading development agency and would not use the position to promote the goals of the Bush administration. He repeated what the directors wanted to hear: that he respects the multilateral nature of the institution and its overall goal of eradicating world poverty through loans, aid and advice.

And he succeeded.

In a signed statement released today, the eight European executive directors at the World Bank said that they were convinced of Mr. Wolfowitz 's "unreserved commitment to the Bank's mission of poverty reduction" and that he would not switch the focus from African nations and other countries most in need.

Similarly, the directors representing the 108 developing countries at the World Bank said in a separate statement that Mr. Wolfowitz had embraced the institution's mission and assured them that his loyalty was to the World Bank and "to no other authority."

James Mann, the author of "The Rise of the Vulcans," which chronicles the role of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration, said Mr. Wolfowitz stood out among his peers for regularly challenging convention, "particularly liberal wisdom."

"Under the surface, I think he and the White House have different agendas for this appointment," Mr. Mann said. "For Wolfowitz, this is taking on a new area, but for the Bush White House, this is putting in the bank a guy who has been one of the most closely involved with advising the president on foreign policy."

Even some critics acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz may well prove to be an accomplished president of the World Bank. But they still say they are worried that whatever his qualification he will inject renewed antagonism towards the bank just as the open hostility and defiant demonstrations of the last decade had begun to wane.

Already, a small band of protesters gathered outside the World Bank's modern headquarters here this morning just blocks from the White House, decrying Mr. Wolfowitz and his war record in Iraq and warning that he will be "the link between shooting wars and economic wars."

Jessica Einhorn, who succeeded Mr. Wolfowitz at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, predicted that the critics would be surprised by the new bank president.

"The kind of idealism that motivated what many think are his errors in Iraq is in fact the kind of inspirational leadership that may be needed in the bank," she said. "I think you can turn this around and see he has a belief in the human spirit."

Mr. Wolfowitz will succeed James D. Wolfensohn, the outgoing president who managed to win over many of his critics, many of whom had warned that the wealthy former Wall Street financier lacked the heft or experience to lead one of the world's largest and most unwieldy bureaucracies.

Indeed, Mr. Wolfowitz is known as an intellectual rather than a manager and is expected to rely on strong assistants to help him run the organization.

As president Mr. Wolfowitz will have significant power to decide what projects are approved and to hire and fire personnel.

To insure a strong voice in these central decisions, the countries that might have blocked his nomination have won agreement from Mr. Wolfowitz that he will appoint several managing directors, especially from Europe.