Wolfowitz: down and (almost) out

I'm only running this because it's the most complete and the raciest piece of gossip about the 3 meters of shit Paul Wolfowitz is currently flailing around in. I'm also running it because in the history of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, there's just never been any gossip that anyone ever cared about before.

Since the series of world monetary conventions that followed World War II, tradition has given the president of the United States the power to appoint each new head of the World Bank; the International Monetary Fund's chief executive is traditionally appointed by Western European finance ministers. But the tradition is not carved in stone, and if (most insiders say "when") Wolfowitz loses his job -- resigns under pressure or is flat-out fired by a vote of World Bank members -- there is a chance the 60-year American perk may end, and a non-American may replace Wolfowitz at the helm of the World Bank.

Beyond Wolfowitz's romantic pecadillo, Bush's Iraq War has infuriated a great many world governments, and they would be thrilled to put a banana peel under the shoe of one of Bush's Iraq warhawks. Wolfowitz stormed into the World Bank loudly vowing to clean up an alleged culture of corruption. A lot of the career staff are thrilled about the circumstances that have brought Wolfowitz to these troubles.

Wolfowitz appears to be one of those power-drunk fellows who believes that the higher he rises in the corridors of government power, the less the rules apply to him, because who has greater power or authority sufficient to thwart him? Unfortunately, a lot of people find the chance to thwart or destroy an arrogant, nasty jerk like that absolutely delicious. There's some old motto about being careful how you treat people on your way up, because you're going to meet them again on your way down, and Wolfowitz appears to have made a career out of pissing off lots of people. And this appears to be his inflection point, where his upward path flips and becomes his downward path.

Bush has very little time left to protect Wolfowitz, and as Bush becomes a lamer and lamer duck, he has lots of other problems. Though noted for his loyalty to his subordinates, Bush may only have enough influence to find Wolfowitz a cushy new job, probably back in academia. I suspect the top-notch private universities won't want him; he'll probably have to settle for a chair at a Southern Bush-friendly university whose students aren't likely to riot at his appointment. "I'm the guy who designed the Iraq War" isn't really a super credential at the top of your C.V. these days.

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The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Saturday 5 May 2007

Neoconcubine scandal
turns on big bad Wolfie

Mystery still surrounds the World Bank chief's relationship, writes Peter Huck.

If ever there was a woman behind the man, Shaha Ali Riza would seem to be it. Riza is the Libyan-born girlfriend of Paul Wolfowitz, the beleaguered president of the World Bank. Wolfowitz is accused of using his influence to get Riza a 36 per cent pay rise before she was seconded to the US State Department to avoid any conflict of interest. Riza's tax-free salary at the department, of $US193,590 (Aus$234,834), paid by the bank, exceeds that of her boss, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

The scandal threatens to bring down Wolfowitz, whose role as a neoconservative hawk in the US President's first administration - George Bush called the 63-year-old defence deputy "Wolfie" - and as one of the chief architects of the war in Iraq has made him many enemies.

Given that Wolfowitz promised to crack down on corruption at the World Bank, his proposal that Riza keep her job while he recused himself from "all personal matters involving her" seems disingenuous, violating rules that banned him being personally involved with any of his employees. Bank staff called Riza the "neoconcubine". Was the man who told Congress before the Iraq war "I am reasonably certain they will greet us as liberators" merely a fool for love or was he deceptive, self-dealing and arrogant, as foes claim?

Almost nothing is known - publicly, at any rate - about his relationship with Riza. Does she relate to the somewhat absent-minded figure photographed with holes in his socks outside a mosque in Turkey in January? Or is she turned on by their mutual desire for Middle Eastern democracy?

While Wolfowitz is a pro-Israel Jewish-American and Riza an Arab feminist, they share ideological convictions. Wolfowitz was the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Washington's John Hopkins University and Riza studied at the London School of Economics and read international relations at Oxford.

Published reports of Riza's early life are sketchy. Born in Tripoli or Tunis in 1953 or 1954 to a Libyan father and a Syrian-Saudi mother, she was raised in Saudi Arabia, where her father was a consultant to King Saud, and Britain. After moving to Britain (she is a British citizen) Riza embraced Western freedoms. At Oxford she meet her former husband, Bulent Ali Riza, a Turkish Cypriot. They have a son.

In the late 1980s they moved to Washington and divorced. The move brought her into the orbit of neocons such as Wolfowitz, intent on reshaping the Middle East. Riza gravitated to the Iraq Foundation, emigres determined to oust Saddam Hussein, and then the National Endowment for Democracy, both neocon favourites, before joining the World Bank in 1997.

By the time the scandal broke, Riza, who did fieldwork in the Middle East and speaks English, French, Arabic, Turkish and Italian, had risen to acting manager for external affairs and outreach for the bank's Middle East and North African regional office. She had been listed on the bank's website as a media contact for Iraq reconstruction efforts.

The Washington Post says that by March 2005, Riza and Wolfowitz - who separated from his wife, Clare, with whom he has three children, in 2001 after an alleged affair with a staffer while at John Hopkins University - had been dating one another for almost two years, although they are thought to have met while she was at the National Endowment for Democracy. They were discreet, entertaining at her home while security guards waited outside. Press reports said she began "talking to Paul" before Wolfowitz became Donald Rumsfeld's deputy in 2001, and that he was influenced by her views.

Did Riza play a pivotal part in making the case that led to the Iraq war? In March 2005 Arab News reported she played a "key role" in helping launch the invasion, and was "one of the most influential Muslims in Washington".

By early 2005 their relationship was generating gossip. The first signs of storm clouds emerged in March 2005, when London's Mail on Sunday asked: "Will a British divorcee cost 'Wolfie' his job?" Alleging he was "so besotted" with Riza "that he cannot be impartial", the Mail predicted disaster. Bank staff twisted the knife: the affair was "an impossible conflict of interest". And a Washington "insider" said "it doesn't look good to be accused of being under the thumb of your mistress".

Wolfowitz acknowledged to the bank his affair with Riza in May 2005, a month before he became president. A bank dossier says he dictated Riza's tax-exempt salary when she was reassigned to the State Department. Riza says she wanted to stay at the bank and, as the victim of a "media circus", has endured "the most vicious public attacks".

Yet a leaked bank memo said Riza's pay rise was "more than double" the allowable sum. The ethics panel says it was not consulted. Wolfowitz's apparent willingness to bend the rules also allegedly extended to pressure imposed on the State Department to rate Riza's job performance as "outstanding".

At the department, Riza worked on Middle East issues, under Dick Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth. In December last year she became a senior adviser to the Foundation for the Future, created to make grants to the Middle East. From April to May 2003 she is alleged to have visited Iraq, at the behest of a private company linked to the US Defence Department, to examine "issues related to setting up a new government". The reputed go-between was Douglas Feith, who worked with Wolfowitz at Defence. Feith says he does not recall this. Riza's lawyer said her client took unpaid leave.

Mystery also surrounds how Riza, a foreign national, got security clearance to work at the State Department. There is no record of one being issued. Should Congress investigate?

A certain froideur has crept into media reports of their affair. The Washington DC Examiner said they had split. "For everyone who ever wanted to date a war criminal," sniped the Wonkette blog, "this is probably your best chance now that Milosevic is dead."

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Copyright © 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald.