it may be a wee long but it should answer any questions on the topic:
Paul Wolfowitz to Be Nominated as Next World Bank President
2005-03-16 09:24 (New York)
By Simon Kennedy and Julie Ziegler
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Paul D. Wolfowitz, the Deputy
Secretary of Defense, will be nominated to be the next head of
the World Bank, a U.S. official said.
President George W. Bush will name Wolfowitz later today,
the official said. He would replace James Wolfensohn, 71, who
said in January that he would leave the institution when his term
ends May 31.
Wolfowitz's nomination must be approved by all of the World
Bank's member countries, which analysts said would be largely a
formality. By tradition, the U.S. chooses the head of the World
Bank, and European officials choose the managing director of the
International Monetary Fund.
Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols declined to
comment on the nomination.
Other candidates for the World Bank position included former
Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina and
Bush administration AIDS policy chief Randall Tobias.
Wolfowitz was a strong advocate of the Iraq war, advocating
the toppling of Saddam Hussein and helping the administration
craft its rationale for the invasion. The U.S. official said
Wolfowitz is a proven leader, intellectually and operationally.
World Bank Scope
His management experience running the Pentagon, the largest
government agency with nearly 700,000 civilian employees and 1.3
million in uniform will serve him well at the World Bank, the
official said.
Responding to a report in the Financial Times earlier this
month that Wolfowitz was a candidate for the World Bank, a
Defense Department spokesman said he would remain at the
Pentagon. ``Secretary Wolfowitz has been asked to stay on in an
extremely important job, one that he likes doing very much,''
Defense Department spokesman Larry DiRita said March 1.
Under Wolfowitz, the Bush administration may now try to
narrow the focus of the World Bank, returning the international
lending institution to its roots of primarily financing large
infrastructure projects and limiting the practice of handing out
zero-interest loans, analysts such as Alan Meltzer, who led a
2000 congressional inquiry into the World Bank, said.
Management Goal
The lender, the largest financier of projects in developing
nations, broadened its scope under Wolfensohn, who sought a more
``humanizing'' role for the bank, according to Joseph Stiglitz, a
Nobel Prize-winning professor at Columbia University and former
chief economist of the World Bank.
Since taking over in 1995, Wolfensohn cut by 40 percent
financing for dams, bridges and infrastructure projects, and
shifted that money to programs promoting climate change and
development.
The U.S. is seeking to scale back some of Wolfensohn's
projects, overhaul the bank's $20 billion a year lending
operation and more effectively manage more than 10,000 employees
scattered in 109 nations, Meltzer said.
Bush named Wolfowitz, 61, as deputy to Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld in February 2001. Then dean of Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies, Wolfowitz
was a veteran of both the State and Defense Departments.
State, Defense Veteran
He served as undersecretary for policy for Vice President
Dick Cheney when Cheney headed the Pentagon during the
administration of former President George Bush, the current
president's father.
From 1986 to 1989, Wolfowitz was the U.S. ambassador to
Indonesia, and assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs from 1982 to 1986. He worked on arms control and
disarmament issues in federal agencies in the 1970s.
Wolfowitz was a critic of former President Bill Clinton's
approach toward China and Russia, and urged tougher stances on
those countries' missile transfers to Iran. He also supported
providing international financial assistance to Indonesia during
the Asian financial crisis, testifying before Congress that it
served U.S. interests.
From 1995 to 2001, Wolfowitz was a director of toy maker
Hasbro Inc. He received a Masters degree in administration and a
Doctorate in political science and economics from University of
Chicago.
