Republican Congressman Walter Jones from North Carolina has a suggestion for Wolfie's new job. Send him to Iraq:
Paul Wolfowitz may have been ousted from his post at the World Bank, but a free-speaking GOP lawmaker has an idea to keep the so-called "architect" of the Iraq War from standing in the unemployment line.
"I would like to suggest...that maybe we give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him over [to Iraq] as mayor," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., "since the neocons got us in over there."
As deputy secretary of defense from 2000 to 2005, Wolfowitz helped develop the strategy and public rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He publicly stated that coalition troops would be greeted as liberators, and the nation of Iraq would be largely capable of financing its own rebuilding through oil revenues.
Uh huh. It's always the media, isn't it? Does anyone from the GOP ever accept responsibility, ever, for anything?
"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."
He denied suggestions that lingering personal antipathy against him had contributed to his decision to leave.
"I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that.
"People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."
Outgoing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and his love interest, Shaha Riza, have split up. Riza was reportedly "upset by all the publicity and the implication that she was getting ahead with the help of a powerful man."
Yeah, that'll show the critics. After your powerful man lost his job and was no longer powerful you dumped him to prove that you're not with him just because he's powerful. Karma's a bitch.
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.
ABC News is reporting in breaking news that "PAUL WOLFOWITZ WILL NOT RESIGN 'UNDER THIS CLOUD' AND WOULD RATHER PUSH THE ISSUE OF HIS TENURE TO A VOTE BY THE WORLD BANK BOARD, HIS LAWYER SAYS." (No link, there's no story up yet.)Here's the link.
Dear World Bank, welcome to our world. Bushies who have screwed up, who have you screwed YOU, don't quit until you give them a medal. It's time for the rest of the world to show the US who's boss. Bushies don't negotiate with you, they won't leave without a fight - so give him one. I'd start by taking away his furniture. Though what the Germans just did - telling him he's not welcome in their country - was a hell of a first step. I think he's positioning for a massive monetary settlement. The World Bank had better not give it to him. We don't reward incompetence. Well, WE do here in Republican America, but the World Bank is supposed to set the standard for competence and ethics. Start uninviting Wolfie to every event and every meeting in existence. And like I said, start removing his furniture.
What a total embarrassment. Though the fact of George Bush defending a guy who gave his unmarried sex partner* a cushy job at the people's expense is priceless.
(* "Sex partner" is a phrase the religious right likes to use for committed gay couples, so what's good for the goose...)
The appropriate end for a very bad man. From ABC News:
World Bank officials say the bank's board is completing an "exit strategy" that will allow World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to resign this afternoon and "still save some face" over the issue of his efforts to seek a promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend at the bank.
The officials say the bank's board will accept Wolfowitz's resignation but will also acknowledge that the World Bank's Ethics Committee bears "some responsibility" for giving him bad advice on the issue of his girlfriend.
The decision is likely today, officials say, because Wolfowitz had been scheduled to leave tonight for a European trip.
German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said yesterday, "He would do the bank and himself a great service if he resigned." The German said Wolfowitz would not be welcome at an Africa forum the bank is holding next week in Berlin should he refuse to resign.
Wolfowitz made an impassioned plea to the board last night to clear his name before leaving.
He said the inquiry into his conduct "has the potential to do greater long-term damage to the institution than the alleged underlying ethics issue that was, in point of fact, put to rest over a year ago."
Wolfie comes from the George Bush school of ethics. The harm doesn't come from their crimes, rather, it comes from holding them accountable for their crimes.
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Hey, it's not like he lied about a war this time. He just lied about getting his girlfriend a new job and a pay raise. That's "just" an ethics violation. Kid's stuff for the Bush crowd. Bush isn't going to let the rest of the world tell him what to do. No way. The Bush team is sticking with their guy, Wolfowitz:
At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow said he did not think Wolfowitz has done anything to warrant his resignation.
Snow said that President Bush continues to support Wolfowitz, who had served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon and played a lead role in mapping out the U.S.-led war in Iraq before taking over the bank nearly two years ago.
"What we've said is, yeah, he made mistakes," Snow said. "That pretty much is obvious. On the other hand, it's not a firing offense."
The White House believes that the campaign against Wolfowitz is rooted not as much in what he did, but in his role as a key architect of the Iraq war. This proxy fight has made the president more determined to stand behind Wolfowitz, unless the facts made it absolutely clear that his behavior was egregious, a senior administration official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and thus spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
Of course, the Bush administration has a very high standard for "egregious."
NOTE FROM JOHN: I guess the Bush White House has no problem with out-of-wedlock sex partners helping each other get cushy jobs at the public expense. Funny position for an abstinence-only defense-of-marriage morals crowd to be advocating.
A committee of World Bank directors has formally notified Paul D. Wolfowitz that they found him to be guilty of a conflict of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion for Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, in 2005. The findings stepped up the pressure on Mr. Wolfowitz to resign....
It was not clear whether the committee, consisting of 7 of the bank’s 24 board members, would remove Mr. Wolfowitz from his post or, more likely, express a loss of confidence in his leadership in a manner that might persuade him to resign. Bank officials say that a majority of the bank board has concluded that he should go.
And guess what, now we're paying a price for Bush putting Wolfie in this cushy job:
This official said that the overwhelming sentiment in Europe, as expressed in editorials, political commentaries and even web logs, was that European governments should never again let the United States pick the president of the World Bank all by itself.
Nice loss of prestige for the US, if we lose the prerogative of picking the Bank chief.
That's your tax dollars at work. Helping get senior Bush officials laid. Oh, and she was hired to work on Iraq reconstruction. Nice. And you wonder why things are such a mess in Iraq. They spent our money on their lovers.
Nice to know the Bushies have now turned the World Bank into their own personal cesspool. Paul Wolfowitz, the brainiac behind the Iraq war, has now made the World Bank his own personal love bank.
If some third world despot did this, Wolfowitz would orchestrate an invasion of his country. But when Wolfowitz grossly abuses his office in order to pay off his lover, it's a simple "mistake." The man should be run out of the bank on a rail. What happened to all those conservative concerns about organizations like the World Bank wasting our money? Our TAXPAYERS' money? Wolfowitz spent YOUR MONEY, folks, on his lover. And you can take that one to the bank.
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz publicly apologized yesterday for the "mistake" of personally orchestrating a high-paying job and guaranteed promotions for a bank employee with whom he is romantically involved, as new details of his role in the arrangement emerged and staff members angrily demanded his resignation.
Wolfowitz attempted to address about 200 staffers gathered in the bank's central atrium but left after some began hissing, booing, and chanting "Resign. . . . Resign." He had approached the gathering after holding a news conference in which he said, "I made a mistake for which I am sorry."
Bank insiders confirmed reports from the bank's staff association that Wolfowitz directed personnel officials to give Shaha Riza, his longtime companion, an automatic "outstanding" rating and the highest possible pay raises during an indefinite posting at the State Department, as well as a promotion upon her return to the bank.
And to top it off, he lied about it:
Until yesterday, Wolfowitz and his aides had insisted that "all arrangements concerning Shaha Riza were made at the direction of the bank's board of directors." Bank sources said, however, that neither the board nor the ethics committee was aware of the terms of the final agreement.
Oh, and get this - Wolfowitz is worried that his using Bank money, YOUR money, to pay off his lover might detract from larger issues like his "anti-corruption" campaign. Now that's chutzpah:
Wolfowitz bemoaned that the controversy threatens to overshadow the official agenda of the bank's annual spring meeting opening here today -- including ratification of a global anti-corruption strategy and funding to reduce poverty in Africa.
