The American Mind

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz had enough of the calls for his resignation. He told an investigating panel he was on the up-and-up and won’t resign:

Wolfowitz appeared before the ad hoc committee with his attorneys and presented a 20-page document defending himself, in addition to his prepared statement. He said that when he came to the World Bank, he tried to resolve “the potential conflict of interest caused by my pre-existing, personal relationship with Shaha Riza,” a senior bank employee.

Among other actions, he said, he disclosed his relationship with her, proposed to recuse himself from all personnel matters involving her and registered “strong and repeated objections” when the bank’s ethics committee told him that he should implement a promotion and pay-raise plan for her once she was placed in a position outside the bank.

The 63-year-old former top Pentagon and State Department official, one of the principal architects of Bush’s Iraq war policy, has come under intense criticism from some World Bank employees for alleged violations of staff rules and conflict of interest related to his girlfriend’s employment. Last week, more than three dozen former senior bank officials signed an open letter urging that he resign so the bank can “speak with the moral authority necessary to move the poverty agenda forward.”

The bank’s executive directors decided April 19 to refer the matter to a special panel, which heard from Wolfowitz today. The panel, known as the ad hoc group, is charged with making “early recommendations” to the 24-member Board of Directors, which is expected to make a decision in the case this week.

“I regret the tumult this has caused the Bank,” Wolfowitz said in his statement. “However, to criticize me when I did nothing other than attempt in good faith to follow the guidance of the Ethics Committee would be unwarranted and grossly unfair. Moreover, it would be harmful to the institution.”

It is so clear he acted properly, he said, that “I can only conclude that the rush to judgment, and the orchestrated leaks of false, misleading, incomplete and personal information about me and Ms. Riza, are all part of a conscious campaign to undermine my effectiveness as President and derail important programs of the Bank to aid the poor, especially in Africa.”

He added: “The goal of this smear campaign, I believe, is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am an ineffective leader and must step down for that reason alone, even if the ethics charges are unwarranted.” But forcing him out in a “circus-like process” will send “a terrible message” to any potential successor and show that “the Bank does not care about reform,” he said.

“I, for one, will not give into such tactics,” he said. “And, I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest. I do not believe that doing so would serve the interests of the world’s poor who are supposed to be the first concern of us all.”

Contrast Wolfowitz’s assertiveness with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ weak, wandering, and misleading defenses of the firings of U.S. Attorneys. The maxim for these high-level politics is “He who is on the offensive wins.” Wolfowitz knows the weak case against him and finally came out blazing with both barrels. Gonzales slinked slinked away into hiding.

“Wolfowitz Defends Girlfriend’s Pay Increase Before Panel” [via Sister Toldjah]