Paul Wolfowitz is sending shock waves through the World Bank as he begins exerting his influence -- starting with a crackdown on corruption -- less than a year after arriving from the Pentagon with a reputation as a neoconservative ideologue. Wolfowitz's nomination by President George W. Bush to head the world's largest development lender was controversial from the start because of his role as an architect of the Iraq war. Eight months into his tenure, critics, including veteran bank officials who have left in an exodus of managers, say Wolfowitz has centralized his authority through an inner circle of advisors mostly from the Pentagon and White House.They cite two recent appointments -- both American Republicans -- to key positions. Suzanne Rich Folsom became director of Institutional Integrity, the bank's anti-corruption unit, and Kevin Kellems, a former advisor to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, was named to the strategic advisory post of director of external relations. A recent letter by the World Bank Staff Association questioned the appointments, and the bank's 24-member board of member nations has urged Wolfowitz to step up the search to fill senior management positions.
The bank's No. 2 position of managing director has been vacant since December when Shengman Zhang, the bank's operations chief, left for the private sector, causing anxiety over who will fill his post. In a recent interview with Reuters, Wolfowitz said he had launched a global search to fill Zhang's post, opening a traditionally closed decision-making process that member countries in the developing world have long complained about.
| It's the EUro/tranzi unelected elite network vs. open meritocracy. no wonder they're unhappy with him! |
Wolfowitz's predecessor, James Wolfensohn, also had a volatile first year of friction with senior managers and staff as he tried to reform the institution. Analysts who have followed his career say Wolfowitz has a history of forcing unpopular ideas and strategies on resistant audiences. "He has always taken the role of a controversial visionary whose job is to articulate a new path forward to people who don't want hear it," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a research group in Arlington, Virginia, with close ties to the Pentagon. "Wolfowitz at the Pentagon felt that if people were happy with what he was doing then he must not be doing it right. So I'm not surprised he has brought much of the same demeanor to the World Bank."
