World Bank President: Is Wolfowitz Living Up to his End of the Bargain?

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Is Wolfowitz Living Up to his End of the Bargain? The Government Accountability Project has been able to obtain a board report suggesting that the newly appointed Country Manager to Iraq, Simon Stolp may not be the best candidate.

"...the Panel was left uncomfortable as to whether he could become a credible, substantive... representative of the Bank." That Stolp appears to be a Wolfowitz political appointee raises doubts about Wolfowitz's statements that he would not make management decisions while he remained Bank President.

Sources also indicate that the White House went over Treasury's head to put pressure on the Board to get this done. Its rumored that VP Cheney is the one pulling the strings on this one. Looks like we may be in for a month of surprises like this...

This story is also picked up in an Inter-Press Service article today that has been syndicated in several places.

Sameer Dossani ~ May 22, 2007

Comments

Like a nice little girl, Daniela is following orders from her benefactor:
"In his most recent move, Mr. Wolfowitz has remade his Iraq team, pressuring Mr. Poortman to accept reassignment as a country director in Central Asia, officials said. After Mr. Poortman refused and retired, Mr. Wolfowitz filled the Middle East slot with Daniela Gressani, an Italian staffer who had handled Mr. Wolfowitz's transition to bank president. "It's very important to have chemistry," Mr. Wolfowitz says."

http://www.mre.gov.br/portugues/noticiario/internacional/selecao_detalhe.asp?ID_RESENHA=277082&Imprime=on

Yul ~ May 22, 2007, 05:13 PM

And Daniela has appointed Simon Stolp, but failed to mention that he was given the Joint Civilian Service Award by the US Department of Defence, which is granted to civilians who demonstrate conspicuous and meritorious service in roles supporting the US military. Hmm... the World Bank's Country Manager is the receipient of an award demonstrating conspiciuous and meritorious service in roles supporting the US military in Iraq? Won't that go over well in the non-military community! Couldn't the Bank find someone not tainted with military association? How about someone who received an NGO award? Are these folks really that tone deaf?

Reinvent the Bank ~ May 22, 2007, 05:25 PM

"And what does the appointment mean? Well, it's not hard to figure out.

The appointment likely means the Bank will release new loans to the occupied Arab nation, despite the deteriorating security situation and recent disclosures of massive corruption in reconstruction efforts.

Yep, just what's needed -- more billions of dollars flowing into a country where the word "accountability" does not translate and where money evaporates faster than Bush Administration promises to rebuild New Orleans.

Of course, Mr. Stolp is pretty good at making promises that don't pan out. here he is quoted in a NY Times story from 2004:

"We're getting the crisis back under control," said Simon Stolp, the program manager for electricity at the Project and Contracting Office, which is managing billions of dollars of Congressionally mandated reconstruction money. "There are a whole basket of positive things to be seen," he said.

The grid had been deteriorating under the pressure of sanctions and neglect ever since it was put back together after American bombers destroyed it in 1991, but Mr. Stolp said those problems were quickly becoming a thing of the past.

"There will be more megawatts on the grid next summer than there have been at any period of time since the gulf war," Mr. Stolp said.

I guess you can say he did a heckuva job."

Courtesy: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/22/11442/3977

Yul ~ May 22, 2007, 05:40 PM

I guess he must be the RIGHT MAN to make sure that the Iraqi Govt of the day use up this money one way or the other so that Iraq will forever be in debt:
"The project was approved on March 29, 2007 by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors.The overall project cost is estimated at US$150 million. The World Bank's credit of US$124 million is on standard IDA (International Development Association) terms with no interest, 35-year maturity, a 10-year grace period, and 0.75 percent service charge. The credit is accompanied by counterpart financing from the Government of Iraq of US$20 million and through parallel funding of US$6 from the World Bank-administered Iraq Trust Fund on grant terms."

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=3632

Yul ~ May 22, 2007, 05:56 PM

His strongest qualifications are that he speaks some arabic, has experience wearing helmet and body armour and he has survived a few years in Iraq.
Hope he does well and stays out of harm's way.

Simon Says... come to Baghdad.

Simon Says ~ May 22, 2007, 06:11 PM

Does he have an arab girlfriend working at the Bank that will have to be seconded?

nin ~ May 22, 2007, 07:25 PM

I thought nobody wanted to go to Iraq anyway. If he wants to be shipped there, isn't that to everyone else's benefit that they don't have to be instead?

A.M. Mora y Leon ~ May 22, 2007, 08:33 PM

Read Tony Karon's lethal review of Wolfowitz. Karon is Senior Editor for TIME.
http://tonykaron.com/2007/05/17/when-the-world-refuses-to-be-saved/

Taste:
"Only the Bush Administration could have put a deranged ideologue with a messianic complex — who had proved to be spectacularly blind and deaf to the realities of what the Iraq invasion he planned would involve — in charge of the World Bank . . ."

Anon ~ May 23, 2007, 01:18 AM

There is a name that need to be considered for the Bank Presidency.

It is a person with no particular development experience, but is highly regarded by both Republicans and Democrats, who has a particular brilliance in the area of understanding organizational dysfunction.

This man is a well regarded scholar, has State Department experience, is an accomplished diplomat, and possibly held the most influential job in Washington by chairing a commission that is going to impact the US well into this century.

The candidate is on nobody's list, is relatively low profile, but is an honorable person to a fault.

His name is Philip Zelikow.

This is the former Executive Director of the 9/11 commission. His bio can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_D._Zelikow

Let's hope someone in Treasury reads this blog and come across this name.

Dr Zelikow may be just the combination of scholar, statesman, organizational expert that the Bank needs.

Conflict of Interest Statement:

The author of this post do not have any relationship, either directly or indirectly, with the proposed candidate, nor do the author stand to gain or lose, directly or indirectly, anything (financial or otherwise) from his appointment except for the satisfaction of seeing the Bank get an outstanding candidate.

To the author's knowledge, no other person have put forward Dr Zelikow's name for this post and Dr Zelikow himself have no knowledge of this post prior to it being made public.

The author do acknowledge having a passing acquaintance with the candidate's work, and within the past two decades, have met Dr Zelikow on 1 occasion.

Noon ~ May 23, 2007, 03:57 AM

"Keep track of the rumored candidates, power plays and buzz."
The Washington Post

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