Wolfowitz's Political Capital Runs Out at World Bank
How did things get to this point? As CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reported at the story's outset:
It all started in 2005 when President Bush chose Wolfowitz to become head of the World Bank. Wolfowitz's girlfriend Shaha Riza already worked there, so to avoid a conflict of interest, Riza was reassigned. But she got what some consider a "sweetheart deal," and it was Wolfowitz who helped seal it.As calls for Wolfowitz's resignation grew louder, a few voices took to the media to defend Riza from what they considered unfair characterizations of her in the media. One testimonial, "In Defense of Shaha Riza," published in the Washington Post, was submitted by Sari Nusseibe, the President of al-Quds University in Jerusalem. Another angry tirade about the "Character Assasination" of Riza was penned by Christopher Hitchens in Slate. (You might remember him from his uniquely-pointed eulogies of Jerry Falwell earlier this week.)
In today's New York Times coverage of the announcement, both sides are getting along – while still maintaining their differing views.
"He assured us that he acted ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution, and we accept that," said the board's directors in a statement issued Thursday night. "We also accept that others involved acted ethically and in good faith."(Is it me, or does this exchange sound curiously similar to the line from the short-lived program "Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist": "I'm not disagreeing with you so much as I'm agreeing with what I said.")
But despite the protestations of "good faith," you know you've hit the end of the road when the head of the World Bank reportedly says "If they [mess] with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to [mess with] them too."
It wasn't merely about Wolfowitz and Riza dating – the World Bank certainly could have accepted their relationship. One of the key aspects of the controversy was the climate within the World Bank. It was, as Sharyl Attkisson said in an exchange with Public Eye, "a culture clash." This was an uneasy pairing: An architect of the Iraq war being appointed the head of the World Bank, which, Attkisson observed, "by definition often deals in liberal causes, with liberal clients."
According to the World Bank's own Ad Hoc Group Report, as a part of Shaha Riza's reassignment, she was to receive a raise that violated World Bank rules. As it says in the report:
Ms. Riza's actual promotion increase was $47,340, which is an increase of 28.2% of the [Market Reference Point] for [her level] Grade H, rather than the 12% high end of the range stated in the rule.Part of Riza's justification for this aberrant raise, according to her own testimony before the board, was that she had been discriminated against for previous promotions because she is "a Muslim, Arabic woman who dares to question the status quo." Riza saw herself as correcting previous wrongs.
In the end, all this made for a combustible combination – the head of the World Bank dating a staffer, the hiking of her salary beyond World Bank limits, and a confrontational style shared by Wolfowitz and Riza. (In a deposition before a World Bank committee, Riza suggested that her conflict of interest was different from married couples in the World Bank because "maybe because they're married, they're seeing that their relationships are asexual. But because I'm dating, there must be sex there.")
Attkisson summed it up like this:
Before Wolfowitz came to the Bank, Riza had gotten $18,000 in pay hikes over four years. The new deal gave her a $66,000 pay raise. She makes more than the Secretary of State and -- though she's loaned to the State Department, under her deal she's paid by the World Bank making her $193 thousand paycheck tax free.Wolfowitz's resignation will be effective June 30.