1) My professional status at the Bank predates the arrival of the new President. I began work in the Bank in 1997.She is fighting mad about this, and rightly. WaPo's coverage of the story today goes so far as to suggest that Bank officials' fear of her righteous anger is the reason they forced Wolfie to be the one to "handle" her, even though he tried to recuse himself. (How manly of them!) Her anger speaks volumes. If Wolfowitz were arranging a "sweetheart deal," would he have arranged one that ticked her off so? Why didn't he just tell her she looked fat?
2) There is no Bank regulation or staff rule that required me to leave the Bank in order to resolve this situation.
3) I was not given a choice to stay and, against my personal preference and professional interests, I agreed to accept an external assignment in 2005 upon the insistence of the Ethics Committee.
4) Against Bank rules and the agreement I signed with the Bank, the details of the assignment and my personnel file have been leaked to the press and staff. As you well know my salary and grade level are quite common for World Bank staff that have years of experience, background and education similar to mine.
Hitchens goes into some details of her career, showing how preposterous is the charge that somehow Wolfowitz was creating a spot for an unqualified person.
She is now attacked for volunteering to visit Iraq after 2003 to assist democratic forces in that country—a rather brave thing for a divorced woman with a child to be doing. I cannot think of anyone who should have been asked to go instead, and I feel almost polluted when I point out that her interest in the question long predates her relationship with Wolfowitz. These are facts that could and should have been known to any reporter. But no—a high-risk visit to a desperately wounded country is presented as "the girlfriend" getting a cushy job. For shame.Shameful on its face, and the moreso because, as WSJ has reported, there are plenty of folks pointing fingers at Wolfie whose paramours really do have cushy jobs unwarranted by past experience. Hitchens' startling conclusion:
I have been living in Washington for a quarter of a century and have said some mean things about people and had some mean things said about me. Fair enough. I sat and thought for quite a while today and decided that this is the nastiest and dirtiest and cheapest campaign of character assassination I have ever seen. Yet almost everyone in my so-called profession seems to regard it with a smirk or as a feather in the cap.Agreed, and the "alternative media" are doing no better, except for WSJ, which adds more exculpatory evidence today. Prof. K. at NLT has kindly highlighted my own coverage, and Jules Crittenden picks up the story today, but that's about it. Also for shame.
Meanwhile, the British press today is hilarious. The Guardian, for example, has the vapors because in the face of these false and malicious charges against him, Wolfie apparently raised his voice.
Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader, in testimony by one key witness Mr Wolfowitz declares: "If they ;-) with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to ;-) them too."Apparently the hardened gumshoes at The Guardian have never heard cursing before, and can't abide that a man who uses the F-word should lead the World Bank. If the story's even true --WSJ casts grave doubts on the veracity of the most serious testimony against Wolfie-- I certainly hope he carries through that threat. Transparency, you know.
In Der Spiegel International, Juan Cole made me laugh out loud with this whopper:
Wolfowitz's record of favoritism, ideological blinders, massive blunders and petty vindictiveness has inflicted profound harm on two of the world's great bureaucracies, the U.S. Department of Defense and now the World Bank.Ah, yes, we all know Juan Cole to be a lover of the Dept. of Defense! And those great world bureaucracies! That line alone tells you everything you need to know about the campaign against Wolfie, doesn't it?
The White House today is standing by its man, who's defending (or about to defend) himself before the board as I write, and WSJ has an excellent recommendation as well:
President Bush should understand that none of this is about Mr. Wolfowitz's "ethics." It is all about the European desire to punish a Bush appointee for his support for the Iraq war and his determination to change the bank's policies to fight corruption rather than simply push taxpayer money out the door. If the board really wants to oust Mr. Wolfowitz, the White House should insist on a recorded vote. We wonder if Europeans really want this showdown.Hah!
And oh, yes: President Bush could also help by declaring that, if the Europeans do oust Mr. Wolfowitz, his likely choice as a successor would be Paul Volcker, the former Fed Chairman who has made a recent career of fighting corruption. There is certainly a lot of that to clean up at the World Bank.
