Thursday, May 17, 2007

Wolfowitz Said to Push for Deal to Quit

Paul Wolfowitz appears to have given up any hope of retaining his job as head of the World Bank and is now furiously negotiating the terms of his release, insisting that the World Bank should find him innocent of all the charges that have been made against him before he will tender his resignation.

This will be extremely difficult, as the bank have already found him to be guilty of ethical and governance violations and there are many at the bank who are not keen to back down from the charges that Wolfowitz has been found guilty of.

The White House began negotiations saying that if the bank softened it's stance that Wolfowitz would stand down sometime in the future, although that stance has hardened into a much more quid pro quo arrangement where the White House now state that he will stand down immediately if he is exonerated.

It's a bizarre aspect of this White House's dealings with the outside world that they are insisting this man be found innocent before he will resign. Surely if he were innocent then there would be no need for him to resign? But such small matters as facts have never really concerned the neo-cons who continue to insist that reality is what they state it to be, they will even take this to the lengths of forcing the World Bank to declare Wolfowitz innocent before he stands down.

And the man who warned the bank that if they "fucked" with him, he would "fuck them"; moved to do so yesterday:

People close to the negotiations said that the threat to oust Mr. Wolfowitz had, in the previous 24 hours, taken a bizarre U-turn, with Mr. Wolfowitz challenging the bank’s directors to vote him out, knowing that the United States would oppose that move. Previously, Mr. Wolfowitz had been doing everything in his power to prevent such a vote.

In effect, bank officials said, he was using the fear among European leaders at the bank of a possible rupture with the Bush administration at a time when the United States and Europe are struggling to cooperate on Iran sanctions, trade and other economic issues. While the United States cannot prevent the ousting of Mr. Wolfowitz, it has by tradition picked the president of the bank and has such influence that its consensus-driven members want to avoid an open break with Washington.

“The bank board is ready to vote Wolfowitz out of office, and Wolfowitz is calling their bluff,” said a bank official briefed on the negotiations. “It’s going to be difficult for the board to drop its charges against him, but they’re going to have to do it if they want to resolve this.”

The bank are so distrustful of Wolfowitz and the Bush White House that they are reportedly asking for a guarantee from Wolfowitz, in writing, that he will step down if the bank softens the language of the charges against him.

It really is saying something when world diplomats - at this level - can't take the White House or Wolfowitz at their word and have to insist on a written guarantee. Perhaps Wolfowitz and the White House are unaware of the level of insult that is being perpetrated upon them. In a world where a man's word is his honour, they are implying that Wolfowitz and Bush's White House have none. They are literally saying that they will not believe a single thing that this man says and will only be reassured if he puts pen to paper giving them a document that they can flourish in public should he rescind on his promises.

They are saying that Wolfowitz has no honour.

It has to be said that Wolfowitz has played his cards here terribly, insisting like a true neo-con that he could change reality by the sheer force of his will - a sort of "I'm the decider" if you like. His stance has infuriated the Europeans who are now circling him like sharks and - despite having the full confidence of Bush's White House - the chances of him staying are now nil, and the best he is left with is negotiating the terms of his departure.

The negotiations over Mr. Wolfowitz’s possible exit unfolded quickly on Wednesday, officials said. As recently as late on Tuesday night, they said that a last-minute appeal by Mr. Wolfowitz to deny the charges against him and to demand a fair process in which he could stay on the job seemed to backfire. Especially galling to bank board members, officials said, was Mr. Wolfowitz’s request that the 24-member board reject the conclusions of its seven-member subcommittee charging him with violating several codes of conduct and trying to cover up his involvement in Ms. Riza’s salary and promotion.

The events of the day added up, in any case, to a hairpin turn in the fortunes of the beleaguered bank president, who over his two-year tenure has alienated virtually all segments of the bank, and a fair number of economic ministries around the world. In the last few weeks, he has reinforced their anger by dismissing the charges of misconduct against him as a “smear campaign.”

The saga seemed to be playing out according to a time-honored Washington formula: confrontation, impasse and crisis, followed by sudden negotiations to avert a possible breakdown of the institution.

True to form it is said that Tony Blair has now entered the fray - using Thomas Scholar, the British director on the board - in an attempt to find a way for Wolfowitz to leave his position with honour.

This will, of course, be impossible. When the bank have already insisted that you give a written declaration that you will resign if they phrase things a certain way, then they have already declared that honour is something that you don't possess.

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