Paul Wolfowitz and ‘accountability’

How excited I was to read in the headlines that Paul Wolfowitz has finally “accepted responsibility”… But then I learned that this was only’for getting his Saudi-American girlfriend Shaha Aliriza an unjustifiably large promotion– and accompanying pay raise– at the World Bank, where he has been President since June 2005.
In that position, Wolfowitz gets his own huge salary. (Can anyone provide the exact figure for me? This page in the ‘jobs’ area of the Bank’s own website is titled ‘Compensation & Benefits’… But coyly enough it gives no details of the Bank President’s salary.)
Also, of course, the job as President of the World Bank carries a lot of power. Among his responsibilities there, Wolfie gets to lecture government officials in all kinds of impoverished countries about the dangers of graft, nepotism, etc.
What’s sauce for the goose seems not, in this case, to be sauce for the gander, too.
But here’s my question. Yes, it is fairly egregious that Shaha Aliriza– a fairly nice woman whom I once knew a little– has been getting a salary inflated to nearly $200,000 a year by virtue of her longstanding romantic relationship with Paul Wolfowitz.
But when is Wolfowitz– and the rest of the rogues who engineered the invasion and subsequent destruction of the state of Iraq– ever going to be held accountable for their leadership-level engagement in that much, much, much more harmful project?
A lot of US people– especially liberals– just love to sound off about the need for various tinpot dictators and other low-level miscreants around the world to be “held accountable” for their misdeeds.
But when will we start to demand that those of our own leaders who took our country into this quite baseless and avoidable war in Iraq and thereby set in motion the destruction of the state institutions in Iraq that then allowed the eruption of the hyper-lethal anarchy we have seen there for the past 3.5 years… while they are also responsible for the deaths of 3,250 US service members, the maiming of many thousands more, the draining of hundreds of billions of dollars from the US Treasury that could otherwise have been used to support much, much more constructive programs both at home and abroad… when will we start to hold those individuals accountable in any meaningful way for their criminally reckless and aggressive actions??
I think Paul Wolfowitz’s post-Pentagon elevation to World Bank Prez is the outcome that riles me most.
This was rewarding the man, not holding him accountable! (Small wonder if, seeing that he and the administration he served had “gotten away with” contravening the norms and rules of international law in such an egregious fashion, Wolfie thereafter thought he could contravene the norms and rules of the World Bank’s Staff Association and also get away with it…)
The fact that Georgetown University, a solidly Catholic institution, also gave a very cushy post-Pentagon job to Douglas Feith should also certainly be put under the microscope…
I suppose many Americans might say that the main thing we need to do is “punish” the Bushites at the ballot-box. I agree that needs to be done– and I’m delighted that last November we started to put that process into motion.
But I don’t think that’s enough. Those men (and the few women) who bear responsibility for taking the US into the terrible military misadventure in Iraq should be repudiated by civilized society everywhere until they are prepared to admit the error of their ways. And then, perhaps, we should encourage them to do something useful to make some amends to some of the numerous Iraqis (and US citizens) whom they have harmed. Working for ten years as an orderly in a rehabilitation hospital in one country or the other… that kind of thing…
But instead of that the Bushites, the US citizenry, and the rest of the world community were apparently quite content to see Paul Wolfowitz emerge from the Pentagon with that much blood on his hands and just saunter over to the World Bank and start working as President there??
That was the real outrage.

65 thoughts on “Paul Wolfowitz and ‘accountability’”

  1. Referring to someone’s companion or partner with such a belittling term as “girlfriend” is a bit inappropriate, esp. since the “girl” in question is at least 40 years old. She’s also a (Tunisian-born) British citizen, not “Saudi-American.”
    – has been getting a salary inflated to nearly $200,000 a year by virtue of her longstanding romantic relationship with Paul Wolfowitz
    A baseless & frankly sexist assumption.

  3. By the way Helena, the World Bank president’s salary is listed in its 2006 annual report as $391,440. Before her series of raises (all of which have been approved by the World Bank board of directors) Riza’s salary was $132k, where now it’s just shy of 194k.
    Maybe someone can rummage through her garbage and find out what she had for dinner?

  4. Helena Cobban
    But I don’t think that’s enough. Those men (and the few women) who bear responsibility for taking the US into the terrible military misadventure in Iraq should be repudiated by civilized society
    It’s proven in Iraq by their behaviours from Sheikh L. Paul Bremers III “Mismanagement, Missing Billions” to those advisors who demolish Iraqi state by their “Knowledgeable skills” your Bravery commanders of slaughtering Iraqis by military power and those consultant /trainers of Death squads , telling us it’s A Very Very “civilized society”!!

  5. Helena: …when will we start to hold those individuals accountable in any meaningful way for their criminally reckless and aggressive actions??
    It will take exactly as long as it did after the Vietnam disaster. In other words, never.
    Helena: …Bushites, the US citizenry, and the rest of the world community were apparently quite content to see Paul Wolfowitz emerge from the Pentagon with that much blood on his hands and just saunter over to the World Bank and start working as President there…
    Just like Robert McNamara four decades ago.
    America does not hold its officials liable for foreign crimes. Iran-Contra was the only time (at least sine WWII) that anyone was even indicted. Meaningless, since everyone got off. Several (such as Elliott Abrams) are now working in GWB’s White House.

  6. I’ve always felt that the lack of any serious and comprehensive public enquiry into the origins and conduct of the Vietnam War was a huge oversight on the part of our so-called policy makers.
    It’s the sort of oversight that could be avoided this time around, provided that Congress has the backbone to carry out such an enquiry. And if it’s conducted in a judicious and objective manner, the enquiry might enable this country to avoid making the same set of mistakes again 30 years down the road.

  7. BBC leading this morning with the Red Cross report that “every aspect of life in Baghdad is getting worse”.
    The report calls the “situation in Iraq unbearable and unacceptable”.
    What’s this have to do with Wolfowitz and co. and this post of yours, Helena?
    Well – at no little risk of belabouring the obvious – absolutely everything.
    Which brings us to a little eight letter word on which so much depends: impunity.
    It is absolutely the case that those individuals – Wolfowitz, Feith, Rove, Libby, Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Bush, Rice, etc. (including their cadres of “enablers”, e.g., Kristol, Krautenhammer, Ledeen, etc.) – would not have done what they did if they had thought there was even a small chance of personal “blowback”, that they might have to personally answer for their part in what transpired. In short, for their part in the evil that they got up and loosed on that society…and on their own.
    The plain fact of the matter is this: we’re in the dark ages as long as powerful men can act with impunity. Or act in the full confidence of impunity.
    That state of affairs needs to be Pinochet’d. Or Eichmann’d.
    Whether it’s the likes of any of the above up before a court of law in Baghdad or the Hague or DC or – at the other end of the spectrum – certain “doors” being closed – e.g., Blair not being able to take a holiday in his beloved Tuscany for fear that it might entail a date with a war crimes prosecutor. Ditto Perle and his beloved south of France – it’s a consummation devoutly to be desired – not least, pour encorager les autres.

  8. ALL America , not just a few scapegoats, must take responsibility for the destruction of Iraq,s infrastructure and deaths of Iraquis ,not just american deaths.
    PLEASE SUGGEST A FIGURE a world court world court would impose on the country that did this.
    I suggest 1000 Billion administered by the UN as punative and to be used to rebuild Iraq and encourage jobs and peace. This is 2 years military costs for the US.

  9. Well said, Tupharsin. Let’s not forget, either, that they got Al Capone for tax evasion. It wasn’t his worst offence, but it got him taken out of circulation. Too bad we never got Blair for lying to Parliament – he would have been out of office in hours.

  10. “But when is Wolfowitz– and the rest of the rogues who engineered the invasion and subsequent destruction of the state of Iraq– ever going to be held accountable for their leadership-level engagement in that much, much, much more harmful project?”
    Sadly, the answer is “never”. This is so wrong. And this is why “we” never learn – except “we” do learn, but the ones with the power don’t learn and don’t care. If bush/cheney were serious about their claims that any country on the planet was a threat to the USA, they would be publicly asking their children to enlist and protect America. That will never happen.
    Also –
    I refer to the guy I am dating as my ‘boyfriend’ and he calls me his ‘girlfriend’ and I am 51. I don’t see where that is belittling. And the women in question certainly did get her inflated salary from knowing Wolfowitz, so I fail to see how that is an assumption. If she was not having an affair with him, I don’t see how she would have even gotten the job, much less the salary.

  11. And the women in question certainly did get her inflated salary from knowing Wolfowitz
    Says who? You’re just reiterating Helena’s claim, again without proof. All pay raises at the World Bank at her level have to be approved by the Board of Directors. Was she romantically involved with all of them?
    If she was not having an affair with him, I don’t see how she would have even gotten the job, much less the salary.
    Wow, if a man had said this about any other woman (or used the belittling diminutive “girlfriend”), Helena would have read him the riot act. Funny how her hair-trigger sensitivity to sexism has failed here.
    If she was not having an affair with him, I don’t see how she would have even gotten the job, much less the salary.
    Susan, Aliriza joined the World Bank in 1997, well before Wolfowitz arrived there. By way of qualifications she holds a masters from Cambridge in international relations and a degree from the London School of Economics. What pray tell are your qualifications in this sphere?

  14. Helena Cobban
    But here’s my question. Yes, it is fairly egregious that Shaha Aliriza– a fairly nice woman whom I once knew a little– has been getting a salary inflated to nearly $200,000 a year by virtue of her longstanding romantic relationship with Paul Wolfowitz.
    Helena, a survey of Median Salary in US is showing $200k its fairly average salary with one serving like her background! Is your talk about her may driven of some sort of jealousy?
    Riza studied at the London School of Economics in the 1970s before taking a master’s degree at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, where she met her former husband, Turkish Cypriot Bulent Ali Riza, from whom she is now divorced.
    After they moved to America, Riza worked for the Iraq Foundation, set up by expatriates to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. She subsequently joined the National Endowment for Democracy, created by President Ronald Reagan to promote American ideals.
    Job Position: Top Research & Development Executive
    Market Area: Centralia WA
    Median Salary: $223,700
    Note: The Salary Calculator does not and cannot take into account such factors as company size, location within the market, or specific additional compensation package elements such as quality of health care coverage, etc.
    http://www.opm.gov/oca/07tables/
    In regards to Paul Paul Wolfowitz and “His womanizing” and many in power the attitude they having mistress its can be common.”, he have a problem with woman working with him and he have another woman when he is a dean in university
    Paul Wolfowitz was Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University. During that time he used his position to prey on woman under his authority.
    When the scandal broke, he and his wife Clare separated but appear not to have divorced.

  15. After [Riza and Turkish Cypriot Bulent Ali Riza, now divorced] moved to America, Riza worked for the Iraq Foundation, set up by expatriates to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. She subsequently joined the National Endowment for Democracy, created by President Ronald Reagan to promote American ideals.? In other words, the woman is a full-blown Strausscon.
    The Iraq Foundation, based in Washington, is funded by the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). ?A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,? Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED

  16. Why women are not at the foreground of the Middle East is beyond me!
    Bring back Gertrude Bell!

  17. Tupharsin hits the nail on the head. The most elementary sense of justice demands that these people be hauled before a court.
    A long jail sentence would allow Wolfie to reflect on the consequences of his actions, like this one:
    “I saw a four-year-old boy sitting beside his mother’s body, which had been decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened.”
    (from today’s edition of the Guardian.)

  18. I hope this isn’t the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if one (or more) of those second tier characters – Wolfowitz or Feith or Perle, e.g. – has an extrajudicial appointment in Samarra.
    They’ve got some serious blood on their hands. And the world being as shrunk and interconnected as it is…

  19. Tupharsin
    Did any action taken before Iraq war against some like H. Kissinger, or even Wolfowitz in South East Asia when he was there….?
    I wonder what’s actin taken by US justice in regards with human’s killing and slaughtering from 1800’s in Philippines along what’s done in Lateen America to Iraq war.
    Any one has been hold accountable to any action or crimes for that war and crimes?
    As far I know no one if there is one this was cover up a big monoester behind the curtains, so what Helena Cobban suggesting and talking its just waste of time and ironic with regards to US crime history, should Helena Cobban tell us more what she meant by saying ” civilized society ” what’s that stand for in details please?

  20. Helena Cobban
    I’m delighted that last November we started to put that process into motion.
    Delighted for what? here what you get is it clearer than this Helena Cobban?
    U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today announced that former United States Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, General Alexander Haig, Lawrence Eagleburger and George Shultz have endorsed Senator John McCain for President. These distinguished leaders served the last five Republican presidents.

  21. Saudi-American girlfriend Shaha Aliriza
    She’s also a (Tunisian-born) British citizen, not “Saudi-American.”
    No one said that Paul Wolfowitz holding also Israeli passport (i.e. he is Israeli citizen) if this not wrong info I got?

  22. Ah, that coveted Kissinger endorsement! And Haig’s too. Lucky McCain! Maybe Kim Jong Il will give him his support, too.
    Can’t McCain take his new friends for a leisurely stroll in Baghdad, unarmed, unprotected, just to show us again how safe it is?
    I’ll pay for their air fare (one-way tickets, of course).

  26. A long jail sentence would allow Wolfie to reflect on the consequences of his actions, like this one:
    Guys
    This piece from TomDispatch illustrates the extent of the screwup.
    http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=183573
    It begins to paint the picture of how this period will be treated in History.
    The authors of this disaster will spend the rest of their lives with the knowledge and regret that they got found out as frauds.

  27. Helena
    As I was rereading my previous comment it occurred to me that the standard example of groupthink leading to cockup is John Kennedy’s White House advisors leading to the Bay of Pigs.
    Mechanisms were supposed to have been put in place to prevent a recurrence
    It would be instructive to analyze how these mechansisms were overridden in the wake of September 11th and to speculate how they might be put back in place.

  31. Helena-
    Concerning Wolfie, Rummie, Feith, Cheney, Bush, and all the other war-mongers in this administration: whatever happened to that good old American tradition of “tarring and feathering”?
    There is little chance this bunch of war criminals will see the inside of a prison cell, but there must be someway we could parade them through the streets of DC like the strange birds that they are.
    I say Wolfie should be the first to go: take him from the offices of the World Bank, tar and feather him right there on the street, and march him down Pennsylvania Avenue, all the way from the White House to the Congress where he can be held on display.
    An entire exhibit could be created, with one bird added each day. For one week the whole group would be made to stand there in front of the Capitol Building tarred and feathered. A large public gallery could also be created for citizens to mock and ridicule a leadership that sunk the political and economic standing of the American republic!
    If Iraqi citizens wanted the chance to attend this event, we could even arrange for their travel from Baghdad. Given all the trauma the Bush gang created in Iraq, we might consider allowing the Iraqi attendees to throw stones at our strange bird exhibit. Not large stones, just small ones…pebble-size in a symbolic act of beating the devil.

  32. there must be someway we could parade them through the streets of DC like the strange birds that they are.
    It’s nice to see the reality based community blowing off some steam with therapeutic revenge fantasies. But let’s be serious: none of it will ever happen!
    Fact is, you have as much hope of tarring Wolfie as you would Saddam Hussein were he still around. Much less those currently and directly responsible for Iraq’s misery. ie, the people killing 100 Iraqis for every US soldier with truck bombs. Those responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths documented in the Lancet survey & the IBC report. And no, occupation doesn’t absolve suicide bombers of guilt- they’re political actors with more power to remedy Iraq’s woe than any US agency. They’d continue to kill Iraqis by the thousand even if the US left tomorrow and Wolfie dropped dead with a heart attack. How is tarring Wolfie, shaming his love interest, exiling them both to a distant planet etc supposed to improve the life of a single Iraqi?
    Even so I’d be thrilled to contribute to Sd’s bus fare, so that he can give “tarring and feathering” a shot. I’m sure our other would-be vigilantes like Upharsin, Bernard, Susan, etc. are eager to join the posse as well. What do you say Sd, up for a field trip to DC? Let me know where to send the check.

  34. (also see this post)
    Ever since the months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there have been a few reports in the newspapers that the Central Intelligence Agency was casting aspersions on the intelligence the White House was relying on to justify the war. The CIA has never given a position on whether the war is needed or justified or said that Bush is wrong to go to war. But doesn’t it seem much more likely that the CIA is an extremely right wing organization than a left wing one? After all, even if the people working for them and at least a lot of the leadership really wanted a war for their own reasons, there are a lot of reasons for them to not want to tie their credibility to what they know is faulty information. They and their personnel, present and former, could use other means of promoting the Iraq war, and still be motivated to make the statements in the media. If the CIA got behind faulty information, they would have to make a choice between whether they would be involved in scamming the American people and the world once the military had invaded Iraq and no weapons were found- so: 1) Imagine the incredible difficulties involved in pulling off a hoax that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Imagine all the people you would have to be able to show the weapons to- the inspectors from the UN / the international community, the American press, statesmen, etc. Then imagine the difficulties of substantiating that story to people who would examine it- the lack of witnesses to a production plant that made the weapons or to transportation operations or storage of the weapons during Hussein’s regime of them. 2) If the story fell apart upon inspection or the CIA tried not to hoax it at all, imagine the loss of credibility they would suffer. The CIA, it is safe to bet, does not want to be known to the American people as a group that lies to them to send them to war. Even within the CIA there could be disagreement among people about how involved they should be in promoting the war or the neo-con agenda more broadly, so the CIA would have to worry about lying to and managing its own people after trying so hard to get them to trust their superiors in the agency, and perhaps there simply might be too many people in the agency who knew enough about what was going on in Iraq to know if someone was deceiving people to promote this war.
    So there is a lot of reason to be cautious against being seen as endorsing what they knew was false intelligence even if they were very strong supporters of going to war.

  35. Vadim, what on earth is the basis for all your indignation? Wolfie has, in fact, admitted to the charges and pretty much fallen on his sword – he said he would take whatever the consequences might be for his actions. Guess he was caught so red handed there was no point in denying anything.
    So, it seems you are the one making baseless assumptions.

  36. As entertaining as this gossip and wishful thinking might seem Shirin, what purpose does it serve? Does it help build bridges of understanding, encourage healing et cetera? Er, no it doesn’t. Does it even discredit the war in Iraq? Actually no: “Wolfie’s” personal life, the condition of his socks, the way he combs his hair etc. has absolutely zip to do with Iraq. It’s flagrantly petty& vindictive. In case you missed it, “Wolfie” is out of office. He no longer has anything to do with the war, and placing him in stocks isn’t going to turn back the clock and return Saddam Hussein to office as you’d prefer.
    Meanwhile, those directly responsible for the ongoing slaughter there have escaped your outrage entirely. I see no calls to tar and feather whoever detonated the car bomb described above by Tupharsin. No sorority house giggling over their hairstyles and love lives. Why are they unworthy of your outrage, these people who according to the Lancet survey have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, far more than US forces? Maybe they’re seen as part of the environment, wild animals beyond the reach of morality? Clearly they have less to fear from you than Wolfie does.

  39. vadim:
    send check to WNC Peace Coalition, PO Box 15892, Asheville NC 28813
    mark the check: for Susan and others to go to DC to humiliate Wolfie and others
    I won’t do violence, but humiliation is an excellent idea!
    oh – you do know, don’t you, that the CIA did some car bombings in Baghdad back in the 1990’s?
    And you do know that two Brits in Arab dress were caught in Basra with weapons and explosives in their car – well, that’s what the Iraqis claimed. They were locked up by the Iraqi police, busted out by the British military – and the car confescated by them also – now, ONE WOULD THINK – if the Iraqi claims were false, the Brits would have gladly turned over the car in question for examination. One would think.
    BUT THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.
    as to: “far more than US forces?”
    How would you know? who is counting the Iraqi dead and listing the cause?
    had a look at the ACLU data today? Lots of Iraqis killed by US forces, mostly unarmed Iraqis, that are never mentioned in the corporate media.
    Oh, and I do think punishment is in order for the violent ones who followed in bush/cheney/rumsfeld/ladeen/perle/wolfie/and who knows who else who planned this distruction of Iraq…….
    but I will never forget the evil ones who started it all up and did none of the fighting or dying themselves, the little slimy spit-comb-licking cowards.

  40. in NYT today:
    In a chaotic day of revelations and meetings at a normally staid institution, Mr. Wolfowitz apologized for his role in the raise and transfer of Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, to a few hundred staff members assembled in the bank building atrium, only to be greeted by booing, catcalls and cries for his resignation.

  41. – has been getting a salary inflated to nearly $200,000 a year by virtue of her longstanding romantic relationship with Paul Wolfowitz
    A baseless & frankly sexist assumption. – vadim
    from NYT article:
    “Mr. Wolfowitz apologized at a morning news conference and at the atrium meeting after the staff association disclosed that it had found a dated memorandum from Mr. Wolfowitz to a vice president for human resources at the bank, apparently instructing him to
    *agree to the terms of a raise*
    and reassignment for Ms. Riza.”
    And I want to know why vadim is not working to stop environmental degradation in Asia rather than worrying about the terms “girlfriend” and “boyfriend”.

  42. if I ever see a video of an Iraqi bomber spitting on his or her comb and then using it – I WILL MAKE FUN OF HIM OR HER.
    And wonder if they could ever kill as many people as the neocons did.

  43. Reading you, Vadim – the which I never do without having first donned the prophylactic of a schnozzola clothes peg – I’m invariably reminded of Hannah Arendt’s lapidary phrase, “the banality of evil”.
    Then I reach for a can of super strong air freshener. I order mine specially from Pilger, Australia and Cole, Michigan.
    Let’s try the Ozzie version first:
    “As with Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld, who dare not travel to certain countries for fear of being prosecuted as war criminals, Blair as a private citizen may no longer be untouchable. On 20 March, Baltasar Garzón, the tenacious Spanish judge who pursued Augusto Pinochet, called for indictments against those responsible for ‘one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history’ – Iraq. Five days later, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to which Britain is a signatory, said that Blair could one day face war-crimes charges.”
    And now just to make sure, here’s a second application (from Michigan).
    “Former Deputy Secretary of Defense and current head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz is personally corrupt. He was corrupt when he tried to turn Iraq over to Ahmad Chalabi, who had been convicted of embezzling $300 million from his own bank. He was corrupt when he pushed the Iraq War with a bunch of phony arguments and the most disgusting campaigns of vilification against anyone who disagreed with him. And he was corrupt when he arranged for his Shiite Iraqi girlfriend, Shaha Riza, to get enormous wage increases.
    Wolfowitz should be fired. After what he did to my country, he has no business in public office, anyway. But he is also just corrupt.”
    There, that’s better.

  44. The U.S. has been granted immunity from crimes prosecution by United Nations International Criminal Court. American peace-keeping troops can now officially never be tried for war crimes.
    It is impossible to think of any reason why the U.S. would need to seek immunity from prosecution for war crimes unless they either have committed a war crime or expect to do so in the future.
    “The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to exempt U.S. peacekeepers from prosecution by the new war crimes court…”
    “The Bush administration, which considers the court an affront to U.S. sovereignty, had said it would veto such missions wherever it believed American troops might be prosecuted [for war crimes].”
    [ SOURCE: BBC News, “Dispute over war crimes court settled”, 13 July 2002. ]

  45. Wolf at the door
    Funnily enough, that’s not just because it’s a bit rum for the chap running the World Bank to bang on constantly about the need to stop African leaders from sticking their fingers in the till whilst failing to be squeaky himself. Anybody who says that the number one priority of his time at the bank will be a ruthless anti-corruption drive is asking for trouble if he has a skeleton of his own rattling in the cupboard.
    Some comments:
    We all knew he was put in to hobble the World Bank and that no good would come of it. I must admit though, I thought it would take a bit longer before he was caught doing something like this. A leopard doesn’t change and all that, or even a Wolf.
    Suraci
    Loved what the White house spokesman said.
    ‘There is a certain level of uncomfortableness about this, however the main problem was one of communication’.
    Dead right.
    MerkinOnParis
    Exactly the same outrageously corrupt behaviour from the so-called “reformer”, Peter Smith at UNESCO in Paris.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/world/20unesco.html?ex=1332043200&en=41d1be5536fab787&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
    After ending its 19 year boycott / tantrum, the Bush admin appoints one of its cronies to carry out “reform” in the exalted American fashion at yet another international institution. A couple of days before the release of a french auditor’s routine report, Mr. Smith resigns alleging death threats made against him. Anything interesting in that audit report? How about the fact that it clearly states Smith broke the organization’s rules by awarding millions of dollars in no-bid consulting contracts to his friends back in the states at Navigant.
    Does anyone see a pattern here? Why is it every business connection this white house has reeks of corruption from top to bottom. I can’t wait to hear who is next in line for this sort of “reform.”
    smokeabit

  47. Then I reach for a can of super strong air freshener. I order mine specially from Pilger, Australia and Cole, Michigan.
    Juan Cole has yet to acknowledge, much less make apologize and make amends for his early endorsement of the war . That smell he’s emitting isn’t air freshener.
    the which I never do without having first donned the prophylactic of a schnozzola clothes peg
    Gee, I always imagined you peering through a lorgnette while penning your florid odes. Doesn’t the clothes peg get in the way?

  48. Susan, I noticed the same set of articles, which appears to validate at least some of Helena’s earlier presumptions. That said, it doesn’t excuse them, or your offensive and deeply sexist claim that Aliriza was unqualified for her job.
    How would you know? who is counting the Iraqi dead and listing the cause?
    According to the Lancet report, the coalition caused less than a third of Iraq’s ‘excess’ violent deaths since the invasion. The IBC’s tally (pulled from dozens of sources worldwide) reveals a sharper disparity. I encourage you to carefully read through their database, noting the origin of the most lethal attacks:
    http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
    ‘Cause’ is a tricky concept, but I think we can agree that people actively engaged in bombings cause more violence than one little man long departed from office, or his love interest.

  49. vadim, verily you have a vexatious voice, victorious only in virtuing vice and viceing virtue. vile vermin of the earth are more valorous than this evasively vindictive Paul Wolfovitz. veritably he is the vicious villain whose vain vocation was to validate the violence unveiled in Iraq. to view the victims of this vengeful violence solely as victims of their own revenge is a vicious prevarication.

  50. Vadim, I actually should have thanked you for your truly disingenuous and pathetic NON-response. In fact, you were even more transparent in your attempt to avoid answering than you usually are.
    For the record, Wolfie did not even attempt to deny his corrupt actions regarding the promotion of his girlfriend – yes GIRLFRIEND. (Or would you prefer paramour? Mistress? Significant other? It all means the same thing, after all.) He did, however, lie and make a series of truly childish excuses. He had, after all, been sooooo concerned about his actions that he had consulted with the ethics committee about it all. The only problem there is that, according to reports I heard on the mainstream media this morning, the people he claims to have discussed it with deny that he ever approached them. And then, of course, he made a stupidly transparent attempt to suggest that his critics were just making a big deal out of nothing because they are still pissed over “the things that they associate me with in my previous job“, pointing out that “I’m not in my previous job. I’m not working for the U.S. government.“, to which the appropriate response is “so what?” And finally he whined in a most embarrassing display about how it was a mistake, but he was still new in the job (as if, somehow, gaining fundamental professional integrity and ethics were part of the learning curve), and…and…blahblahblah (honestly, I could hear his lower lip trembling as he spoke!).
    What a pathetic, craven display!

  51. Oh gee, in my effort to cater to Vadim’s delicate sensibilities I left out the most clear and obvious descriptive term for Aliriza, and one that surely even Vadim could not dispute…
    From now on she will be known as Wolfowitz’s bed buddy. Pallet pal? Mattress munchkin? Pillow partner?

  52. FALSE: Juan Cole has yet to acknowledge, much less make apologize and make amends for his early endorsement of the war.
    he started getting cold feet before the invasion even started. He now knows his support for the whole idea was very misplaced.

  53. wrong again: or your offensive and deeply sexist claim that Aliriza was unqualified for her job.
    Anyone who gets raises while not doing the job is AT BEST — UNQUALIFIED —- to do the job.
    And there is nothing sexist in that claim.
    AND: “According to the Lancet report,” the biggest single cause of civilian death was violence from or directed towards US troops. Also, large category of “unknown” as to who was responsible.
    Of course, all this violence came AFTER the US invasion, or have you not noticed?
    AND WOLFOWITZ WAS A DIRECT PROMOTER OF THE INVASION. HE HAS LOTS OF BLOOD ON HIS HANDS.
    Way more than your typical PTSD Iraqi, that’s for sure.

  54. He now knows his support for the whole idea was very misplaced.
    Actually, he denies ever holding such ideas! Talk about evading responsibility. By Helena’s rules he should have given up his lucrative sinecure in order to clean bedpans at Walter Reed. We should be frog marching him down the cold streets of Ann Arbor in a sack.
    “Getting cold feet” doesn’t mean anything to me. On the evening the war began (March 19th, 2003), he wrote it “will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides” to remove Hussein from power, by force. Them’s gung ho fighting words, not cold feet. If you can find a retraction of this remark anywhere, or better still an apology, I’d love to read it. Thanks in advance.

  55. Anyone who gets raises while not doing the job
    Susan this exchange is certainly hogging Helena’s bandwidth, but she DID do her job. Was she overpaid? Probably, but so are a lot of World Bank employees. Was she qualified to work in an advanced role in her field? Without question! Please, don’t let your visceral hatred of Wolfie incline you to slander an innocent person.
    All the best to you.

  56. “Actually, he denies ever holding such ideas!”
    I disagree with Juan Cole often – perhaps more than I agree with him – but to claim that he denies supporting the invasion of Iraq and the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein’s regime is simply contrafactual. He has not only acknowledged that he supported it, he has been clear that he supported it because he thought it would help the Shi’ites.
    In any case, Juan Cole’s analysis might be off the mark at times, but he is not foolish or stupid enough to deny something that is available in his own words for anyone to see.

  57. Vadim
    She’s also a (Tunisian-born) British citizen (from your first post in this series)
    Do you have a source for this information please? Juan Cole is appealing for clarification.

  59. Riza was detailed to a high-paying job at the State Department in September 2005. “I have now been victimized for agreeing to an arrangement that I have objected to and that I did not believe from the outset was in my best interest,” she said.
    She lamented “vicious public attacks” she said she has received over the matter. The episode, she said, has affected her “professionally, physically and psychologically.”

    Ooooh, so sensitive and poor lady… what about the poor in Africa, how many your pay rise can feed those hungers the poorest land in Africa Madam?
    Did come to your mind how they suffer and affected physically and psychologically by the hunger that your job and your boss should take care of them?

  60. Guardian’s running a good Richard Adams piece this morning about Wolfowitz and the World Bank.
    Learned from it – amongst much else – that the job he got Riza was with Cheney’s daughter! I’m – well – speechless. Speechless but not surprised.
    And the Beeb had Joseph (?) Steiglitz (sp.?) on just now, reprising the loathsome Wolfowitz’s central role in fashioning and putting forth the lies that were used to get up this war. Steiglitz rightly says things shouldn’t be looked at in isolation – that there’s a trajectory here – that Rizagate is on a different scale but nonetheless of a piece with what went before. That, in short, there’s something fundamentally wrong about this guy – he just doesn’t get it. That it all comes down to “governance” – and that he’s not fit for it.
    People have likened Wolfowitz to Robert McNamara. I think that’s wrong. McNamara didn’t get up the Vietnam war. Not only did Wolfowitz get his war up – he lusted for it. McNamara had a certain integrity that’s conspicuously absent in Wolfowitz. Call it the courage of his convictions, loyalty, whatever. He didn’t cut and run. Wolfowitz did. Finally, McNamara was wracked – tormented – then and ever since – by what he’d had a hand in. In short, McNamara has a conscience. Wolfowitz appears to be without one. “That was my job then – nothing to do with now.”
    I suspect that all of this is just a foretaste of what’s in store for Paul Wolfowitz in the years to come. This guy’s going to be Typhoid Mary – he’s in for some serious pariahdom – as and when the United States as a society begins the process of healing itself, a process which necessarily entails getting the full measure of what Paul Wolfowitz and co. have wrought.
    Wouldn’t be surprised at all if he ends up seeing out his last years in Israel.
    Finally, here’s Col. Patrick Lang, the retired senior U.S. Military Intelligence officer, passing his judgement on this character.
    “IMO, he is a war criminal. Men were hanged after WW2 for “planning and waging aggressive war.” What did he (PW) do? IMO, he was at the heart of the conspiracy to persuade GWB to invade Iraq (for whatever set of reasons that you prefer), depose its ruler, destroy its government and substitute another more to our liking. Is this not “planning and waging aggressive war?”
    And now this over educated and deceptively mild mannered nitwit has literally and figuratively screwed himself out of a job. His penchant for such behavior has long been known among the cognoscenti in Washington.”

  61. One final point. Wolfowitz doesn’t even have the excuse that he was “only following orders”. Which pretty well says it all.

  62. (about Juan Cole): “He now knows his support for the whole idea was very misplaced.” – Susan
    “Actually, he denies ever holding such ideas! Talk about evading responsibility.” -vadim
    THAT IS BULLSHIT.
    “Getting cold feet” doesn’t mean anything to me. On the evening the war began (March 19th, 2003), he wrote it “will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides” to remove Hussein from power, by force. Them’s gung ho fighting words, not cold feet. – vadim
    The examples of his questioning the upcoming war were earlier in the month. He did start to question it, suspecting that bush & company would be incompetent. Then he forgot about that when everything looked fine – for a while – and eventually realized what a disaster this occupation had become.
    “If you can find a retraction of this remark anywhere, or better still an apology, I’d love to read it. Thanks in advance.”
    Posted by vadim at April 13, 2007 02:18 PM
    Look it up yourself, lazy.

  64. Kiss of death:
    “As bank staffers and development activist groups continued to call for Wolfowitz’s resignation, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that he has President Bush’s ‘full confidence.'”
    Wolfie’s writing style seems to have been more influenced by the methods of tin-pot dictators than Jeffersonian democrats:
    “I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the following terms and conditions.”

  65. Hi Frank,
    Re: Aliriza/Tunis
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032701953.html
    Hope this helps.
    but he is not foolish or stupid enough to deny something that is available in his own words for anyone to see.
    see post above. Cole: “Thinking that it was a bad idea to invade Iraq (as I said repeatedly in 2002 and early 2003)” Cole: “it has been alleged by some of my detractors that I supported the Iraq War. My position on the war was in fact very complex…I still resist the notion that US and UK troops have died in vain, but my conviction that they wouldn’t did not actually suggest support for the war on a political plane, as some have alleged.”
    Denial aint just a river in Egypt! Cole’s political plane is still circling overhead.
    Susan, I can’t look up something that doesn’t exist (his retraction and apology for claiming the invasion would be worthwhile.) If you know of one he’s issued, a link would be very helpful.
    All the best to you.

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