WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- As the saying goes, "those who can do; those who can't, teach. The Bush administration is "teaching" the rest of the world about democracy and freedom, all the while rejecting democratically elected governments in the West Bank/Gaza and Iran and suppressing free speech and ignoring the rule of law at home.
Under the cloak of the "War on Terror" Bush has managed to grab for himself covert powers that even the most despotic regimes would envy. Luckily, the U.S. public and, indeed, Bush's own party seem to have finally noticed. It should make for interesting mid-term congressional
elections come November.
But Bush is not alone in wanting to teach a thing or two to the rest of the world while ignoring to practice what he preaches. He has placed one of his closest advisors, the mild-mannered Paul Wolfowitz, as the head of the
World Bank. Having "taught" the Iraqis about the wonders of democracy and freedom, the former deputy secretary of Defense is now teaching the rest of the world about good governance and anti-corruption. Unfortunately, these are subjects that he seems to know precious little about. And it shows.
In the run-up to the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings held last week in Singapore, member governments openly questioned Wolfowitz's
anti-corruption agenda as a thinly-veiled attempt to limit World Bank funding to countries that are not to the liking of the Bush administration.
Under former President Wolfensohn, the Bank managed to maintain its politically neutral status. Under Wolfowitz, all pretenses are gone.
Following the installation of the new Hamas-led Palestinian government, the World Bank's program in the West Bank and Gaza grounded to a standstill.
Wolfowitz has similarly blocked loans to Uzbekistan and Kenya (and tried to block debt-relief to the Congo) citing corruption concerns. Interestingly, Transparency International (a fan of Wolfowitz) gives the same high corruption score to Iraq and Indonesia as it does to these three countries.
Despite its low rating for anti-corruption work however, Wolfowitz praised Indonesia's progress against corruption in his first major policy speech before the Bank's spring meetings, not surprising since his stint as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia in 1986-89 is his only significant experience in a developing country (and one that he alludes to constantly in attempting to show his development credentials, much to the amusement of the highly-experienced international staff of the Bank). Also not surprisingly,
Wolfowitz is attempting to strengthen the Bank's presence and operations in Iraq -- perhaps trying to undo the devastation his ill-conceived war has
wrought. Wolfowitz has yet to be held accountable or even questioned on that moral and strategic catastrophe so far.
Wolfowitz has made the fight against corruption the cornerstone of his World Bank presidency. However, the way in which he has gone about it
leaves a huge gap between his words and his actions which have made shareholders, clients and staff all wonder what he is really up to. In
keeping with the Bush administration's preference for loyalty over expertise -- just like what he did when he chose Paul Bremer to be the head of the provisional authority in Baghdad, and we all know what a disaster that was.
Wolfowitz seems to suspect everyone except his small coterie of advisors which he brought with him. It's no surprise that those he brought in with him are all Republican and mostly friends from the Department of Defense; and old acquaintances from the "Coalition of the willing" (former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ana Palacio, and former Salvadoran Finance Minister, Juan Jose Daboub). A year ago, he named as chief of the Bank's anti-corruption unit, Suzanne Folsom, a former lobbyist and lawyer with no experience in investigations and certainly no international experience -- but wife of a prominent Republican who served with Bremer in Iraq. Since that time, very little has come out of the Department of Institutional Integrity except unproved allegations of corruption against Bank Group staff. Staff has likened the atmosphere within the Bank to a Stalinist regime -- one never knows when one will be denounced for some real or imagined transgression, mainly to be intimidated into silence.
Wolfowitz has also recently upgraded the Bank Group's "Whistleblower Protection Policy," to make it easier for staff to report one another for suspected corruption, but has done nothing to improve staff protections from false accusation.
But what really has insiders steamed is the lack of "good governance" within the Bank. While preaching to others about the need for "transparency, accountability and rule of law," Wolfowitz happily ignores all of these strictures within the Bank. He and his advisors refuse to share information -- to the point that staff, the Board of Directors and even the borrower countries themselves learned about decisions from the press before learning about them from Wolfowitz. In a famous case, the Washington Post ran an editorial about Wolfowitz's intention to block debt-relief to the Congo on the morning of the day he was to discuss it with the Board, causing the Board to wonder how the Post was able to articulate Wolfowitz's position so clearly before he had shared it with anyone inside the Bank.
Wolfowitz has managed to hire his former cronies with barely a nod towards the Bank's stringent procurement and recruitment guidelines. Their qualifications and functions largely remain a mystery. The Staff Association protested the recruitment of Ms. Folsom, noting that, at the very least; the Bank's anti-corruption chief should be hired in a transparent and
competitive manner befitting the position. One staff member complained, "It is difficult for us to tell a minister that he cannot hire his cronies on Bank projects when our own president does so with impunity."
Another member of the staff quipped, "Last time I checked, cronyism was a part and parcel of corruption." The Association and the Board have also questioned the role of Wolfowitz's closest advisor, Robin Cleveland, and his pointed refusal to answer has further increased suspicion, especially considering her association with a corruption scandal during her time with the Bush
administration.
As for "accountability," many inside and outside the Bank are wondering when Wolfowitz will take responsibility for the mess he made in Iraq. As is now widely reported in the American press, his rationale for going to war and his predictions about its aftermath were not only wrong, but
deliberately so, yet he still refuses to accept any moral or political consequences for any of it. His chief spokesman these days, Kevin Kellems
(former spokesman for Dick Cheney) is on record as having said that Saddam Hussein was sponsoring terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida a
"fact" that was known by the Bush government to be false well before the war.
Cleveland is also known as the brilliant mind behind Wolfowitz's assertion that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the country's reconstruction. She has now turned her talents to the Bank Group's internal budget, castigating staff for their "fat-cat salaries" and luxury travel.
Never mind the fact that Ms. Cleveland is quite happy with her quarter-million dollar annual salary and had her boss get an exception for
her to the Bank's travel policy so that she could travel to the Annual Meetings last week in first class.
It is to be hoped that the Bank's shareholders will finally have the courage to take a close look at the man they installed at the head of the
institution and determine whether he really is the man for the job. So far, he has shown himself reluctant to practice what he preaches and chooses to lead by hubris rather than by example.
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(Mohamed Hakki is an Egyptian-American columnist for Al-Ahram newspaper, and former member of the staff of the World Bank. He can be reached at:
