[stop-imf] More Wolfowitz news

[robert weissman]

1. NYT: For McNamara and Wolfowitz, a War and Then the World Bank
2. Jamie Rubin in NYT: For Wolfowitz



1. For McNamara and Wolfowitz, a War and Then the World Bank

The New York Times
March 22, 2005
For McNamara and Wolfowitz, a War and Then the World Bank
By ELIZABETH BECKER

WASHINGTON, March 21 - As defense secretary in the 1960's, Robert S.
McNamara never showed any emotion in public about the war in Vietnam
that he directed for seven years. But after he took over as the
president of the World Bank in 1968, Mr. McNamara openly wept when he
gave his annual reports about the dispossessed.

"I cried because I felt so involved in what we were doing," he said in
an interview.

Now, a generation later, Mr. McNamara has a rare appreciation for the
predicament facing President Bush's nominee to head the World Bank, Paul
D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense who is best known as an
architect of the war in Iraq.

Both men made their national reputations directing divisive wars. Both
were rewarded with nominations to head the World Bank and both are
adamant that their qualifications rest on their interest in development
and the world's poor; in Mr. Wolfowitz's case, it includes his work in
the 1980's as the American ambassador to Indonesia.

But when the European members of the World Bank hold a private meeting
on Tuesday to discuss Mr. Wolfowitz's qualifications, the Iraq war and
Mr. Wolfowitz's advocacy of using American influence to spread democracy
around the world will be at the top of the agenda. Since it appears that
their governments are willing to approve of Mr. Wolfowitz, much of the
discussion is expected to turn on how Mr. Wolfowitz's record will
translate into development policy, especially on the question of whether
he will seek to make democracy-building paramount over basic aid issues
like education, health and economics, according to diplomats involved in
the decisions.

"There is a sense of discomfort over Iraq, but the fact that he is a
heavyweight political figure with good intellectual qualities makes us
think that it could be worse," said one of the officials who insisted on
not being identified because of the sensitivity of the nomination.

European business journals that watch development issues, like The
Financial Times and The Economist have been critical of Mr. Wolfowitz's
appointment. In an editorial, "Wolf at the Door," The Economist compared
him to Mr. McNamara, who had ambitious ideas about eliminating poverty
but, the magazine argued, ended up weakening the institution.

"His appointment tells the world that Mr. Bush wants to capture the
World Bank and make it an arm of American foreign policy," the editorial
stated.

Of special concern at the bank, an organization within the United
Nations system, is how Mr. Wolfowitz handled Iraq after the Saddam
Hussein regime fell. These include his public rejection of the
recommendation by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff,
to send more troops to stabilize the country, the subsequent breakdown
in security needed to rebuild the country and the mistaken premise that
the country could be rebuilt largely from Iraqi oil revenue.

"I support Paul Wolfowitz but with the big caveat that he shares
responsibility for the failures of postwar Iraq," said Sebastian
Mallaby, author of a contemporary history of the World Bank, "The
World's Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises and the
Wealth and Poverty of Nations" (Council on Foreign Relations/Penguin
Press, 2004). "That is a piece of his record that he has got to live down."

John Cavanagh, director of the liberal Institute for Policy Studies,
said that Mr. Wolfowitz's record in Iraq suggested that he had a
difficult time admitting mistakes and should not be given a second
chance at the World Bank.

"He ignored or belittled anyone who disagreed with him before the war in
Iraq," Mr. Cavanagh said, "and when it turned out there were no weapons
of mass destruction, shut out the Europeans from most reconstruction
contracts."

Mr. Wolfowitz frames his move as continuing to work for peace "on a
different line of action."

He points to his work as the American ambassador to Indonesia in Ronald
Reagan's administration. According to two career diplomats who carried
out his policies in Indonesia, Mr. Wolfowitz did break new ground
promoting human rights in East Timor, giving financial aidto local labor
unions and Islamic groups and documenting official corruption.

David Merrill, a retired foreign service officer who directed the United
States aid program under Mr. Wolfowitz, said that his former boss had
supported economic development for its own sake as well as being a
necessary means for building a middle class, the civil society and a
democracy. To that end, he approved aid for environmental activists,
labor rights groups and private Islamic groups, which was a rarity 20
years ago.

"He listened to our ideas and we listened to his and it was the perfect
relationship," Mr. Merrill said.

Fighting corruption was one of his big causes, Mr. Merrill said.

At one point, Mr. Wolfowitz told him to end a food aid program because
the wife of President Suharto was profiting hugely from the program
through her partial ownership of the flour mill where the American wheat
was milled.

Timothy Carney, the political counselor at the embassy under Mr.
Wolfowitz, said he had to make a long, extensively documented report on
corruption. "We weighed in against corruption and its bad effects,
essentially arguing back to Washington that the Suharto administration
had exceeded the norms," Mr. Carney said. Mr. Wolfowitz also encouraged
him to publicize human rights abuses in East Timor and in Indonesia as a
whole.

Mr. Wolfowitz resists the idea that his work at the Pentagon played a
role in his nomination to head the World Bank.

Likewise, Mr. McNamara rejects the notion that he asked to run the World
Bank to atone for the destruction in the Vietnam War.

"No, it was not redemption for Vietnam," he said. "Frankly, I don't
think Vietnam had anything to do with me going to the bank."

Mr. McNamara said he thought that Mr. Wolfowitz's war experience would
be of little help at the World Bank.

"I know there is a theory out there that giving economic aid to failed
states will help combat terrorism, but there are so many of those,
you're not going to be able to deal with them all," Mr. McNamara said.

It is really a question of political will, not of terrorism or
democracy, Mr. McNamara said, and whether the richest countries in the
world will give the resources needed to help poor countries improve.

"In the Defense Department I learned that identifying the problem is
always more difficult than finding an answer," he said.


2. Jamie Rubin in NYT: For Wolfowitz

New York Times
March 22, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Lending the Good Loan
By JAMES P. RUBIN

London

IN the days since President Bush announced the appointment of Paul
Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, to lead the World Bank, some
Democrats and Europeans have not been shy about expressing their
concerns. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said the
choice was "hard to understand." Responding to the nomination, a German
development minister told The Financial Times, "We are not exactly
seeing floods of enthusiasm across old Europe."

Along with the selection of John Bolton as ambassador to the United
Nations, the nomination of Mr. Wolfowitz has raised fears that Mr. Bush
is trying to "pack the court" - to fill international organizations with
ideologues who oppose the very idea of international cooperation.

But there is an important difference between Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr.
Bolton. While Mr. Bolton appears to reject the very purpose of the
United Nations, Mr. Wolfowitz has supported the idea that the advanced
countries should use their resources to promote democracy and prosperity
around the world. Indeed, at the core of the neoconservative mission is
the expenditure of American resources in support of democratic values.

Mr. Wolfowitz himself has called the World Bank's mission of reducing
poverty "one of the greatest moral challenges of our time." He is just
the right person to build support for this crucial task during the Bush
administration.

As head of the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz's effectiveness will be
determined by the willingness of the United States and other countries
to contribute resources for nonmilitary programs. Thus, for bureaucratic
reasons alone, he is sure to become the world's main advocate for
foreign aid. Considering that the United States still ranks last among
the major industrialized countries in its per capita contributions to
foreign aid, and considering that the Republican Party has historically
been critical of foreign assistance, it is good news indeed that such an
advocate will have the ear of President Bush.

Some critics oppose Mr. Wolfowitz on the grounds that he was responsible
for so many military and political failures in Iraq. It is true that the
civilians in the Pentagon were negligent in planning for the aftermath
of war in Iraq; there weren't enough American troops and there were few
contingency plans to secure the country against a potential insurgency.
It is also true that Mr. Wolfowitz was na=EFve in predicting that American
forces would be seen as liberators instead of occupiers by many Iraqis,
and that reconstruction could be financed largely through Iraqi oil
revenues.

But these were questions of means, not motive. His motives were laudable
and in line with a tradition of foreign policy idealism that both
parties have supported at different times: the use of American power to
fight tyranny and support democratic values. Mr. Wolfowitz was one of
the few Republicans who supported President Clinton's interventions in
Bosnia and Kosovo.

The neoconservative movement is distinctive in part for its willingness
to expend American resources - military and economic - to promote
democratic change. Mr. Wolfowitz has shown poor judgment in significant
military matters, and that is a legitimate critique. But at the World
Bank, he will be leading not an army but a painstaking campaign to build
respect for the rule of law, openness and good governance through
development projects and international cooperation. He will be doing
something that Democratic presidents from John F. Kennedy to Bill
Clinton have supported - and that today's Democrats should support, too.

Members of the aid community worry that Mr. Wolfowitz will undermine the
World Bank's central mission of alleviating poverty. Greenpeace, for
example, has called his nomination a "disaster" because he will "put
U.S. and oil industry interests first." But he has made clear that
whether it is aid to countries like Burma or Iran, which the United
States has opposed, or the American preference for grants rather than
loans, he recognizes that his new role will entail a new way of doing
business. If he becomes president of the bank, he has said that his job
will be to see if he "can shape a consensus on these things" not push
the American view. By most accounts, during his time as United States
ambassador to Indonesia, he was an effective diplomat and consensus-builder=
.

Finally, there is the issue of Mr. Wolfowitz's critique of
multilateralism. Again, this concern is mainly relevant in the military
sphere, where the United States has such overwhelming power that
unilateral action is a realistic option. When it comes to development
programs, multilateralism is the only option. Mr. Wolfowitz has said in
his new job he would be an "international civil servant," a term that
undoubtedly makes many conservatives cringe. Because of their huge
financial contributions, European and Asian nations have far more
influence on development issues than they do on military matters. To
succeed, by necessity Mr. Wolfowitz will have to shelve the unilateral
rhetoric he relished while at the Pentagon.

Democrats struggling with the appointment of Mr. Wolfowitz may want to
keep in mind that spreading democracy is a bipartisan mission. As they
say, in politics sometimes you have to let the other guy have your way.

James P. Rubin, assistant secretary of state under President Bill
Clinton, was an adviser to Senator John Kerry during the 2004
presidential campaign.