Remaking The World In His Image, One Entity At A Time

George Soros is possibly the worst enemy of freedom, democracy, and conservative values to grace this world in many a year. With a billion dollars at his disposal, he has played a pivotal role in changing the face of American politics by funding the far left organizations that now control the Democratic party. Across the Atlantic, he is organizing the European Council on Foreign Relations, an organization that will no doubt seek to imprint his philosophy on the EU and EU nations. He is using his money to reshape the Western political world in his distorted image.

Having said all that, let's switch gears to the World Bank and the move to unseat Paul Wolfowitz as Chairman. The whole fiasco surrounding Mr. Wolfowitz is well documented. The facts read like a very bad movie script. Mr. Wolfowitz agrees to take over as head of the World Bank with full disclosure that his paramour works there. He asks to be recused from all personnel decisions regarding her, but the request is refused by the ethics committee who instead outline a plan for her to be transferred to a different job with additional compensation for her lost opportunities. Mr. Wolfowitz fully complies. Mr. Wolfowitz then begins a campaign against corruption - followed shortly thereafter by charges that he violated ethics rules in regard to the transfer of his paramour.

So what is the intersection of Paul Wolfowitz and George Soros? The Wall Street Journal suspects that it is the hand of George Soros behind the World Bank inquisition to unseat Mr. Wolfowitz. As they explain:

Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it.

Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip in the U.N.'s good work, and one that had little to do with Mr. Annan himself. Last week, Mr. Malloch Brown was named vice president of the Quantum Fund, the hedge fund run by his billionaire friend George Soros. A former World Bank official himself and ally of soon-to-be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Malloch Brown would almost surely be a leading candidate to replace Mr. Wolfowitz should he step down. Not surprisingly, Gordon Brown cold-shouldered Mr. Wolfowitz at a recent meeting in Brussels.

The bank presidency would be a neat coup for Sir Mark, and not just because the post has heretofore gone to an American. He also stands for everything Mr. Wolfowitz opposes, beginning with the issue of corruption. Consider Mr. Malloch Brown's defense of the U.N.'s procurement practices.

"Not a penny was lost from the organization," he insisted last year, following an audit of the U.N.'s peacekeeping procurement by its Office of Internal Oversight Services. In fact, the office found that $7 million had been lost from overpayment; $50 million worth of contracts showed indications of bid rigging; $61 million had bypassed U.N. rules; $82 million had been lost to mismanagement; and $110 million had "insufficient" justification. That's $310 million out of a budget of $1.6 billion, and who knows what the auditors missed.

. . . Mr. Malloch Brown never made any serious attempt to reform the U.N. beyond the cosmetic, while doing everything he could to block the real reforms proposed by Americans Christopher Burnham and former Ambassador John Bolton. He was, however, energetic when it came to lecturing Americans about what they owed the U.N., such as joining the "reformed" Human Rights Council (whose only achievement to date has been to castigate Israel), pursuing a "new multilateral national security," and otherwise empowering the likes of Mr. Malloch Brown, his multilateral mates and their tax-free salaries.

Views like these help explain why Mr. Malloch Brown is in such favor with Mr. Soros, who has publicly suggested the U.S. will need a "de-Nazification" program to erase the taint of the Bush Administration. So close are the two that Mr. Malloch Brown lives in a suburban New York home owned by Mr. Soros. Mr. Malloch Brown says he pays market rent, though reporting by the New York Sun's Benny Avni disputes that. In any case, it's safe to assume that Mr. Soros's widely published views are close to Mr. Malloch Brown's somewhat more guarded ones.

So it's not surprising that many on the World Bank staff would cheer Mr. Malloch Brown: He's perfect for an institutional culture in which "progressive" thinking goes hand-in-glove with a tolerance for corruption. That culture has been on vivid display in the Euro-coup against Mr. Wolfowitz.

. . . Mr. Malloch Brown warned on Monday that, if Mr. Wolfowitz stayed as president, European countries might withhold funding from the next financing round for the bank's International Development Association.

. . . If the Bush Administration now abandons Mr. Wolfowitz as he faces a decision from the bank's board of governors, it will not only betray a friend but hand the biggest victory yet to its audacious enemies in the George Soros axis.

Read the entire story here. This is one where the Bush administration needs to stand solidly behind Mr. Wolfowitz. Further, one hopes that, with his position secured, Mr. Wolfowitz will start taking a much closer look at the personnel decisions to be made inside the World Bank. The stench emenating from the World Bank Headquarters is palpable. A thorough house-cleaning seems wholly in order.

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The NYT Goes Wolf(owitz) Hunting - But On What Grounds?

I will admit that I have have not been following the Wolfowitz saga that closely. But as least one reader has. I received this e-mail today from Steve H that I reprint here in its entirety and with a few minor additions of my own:

I thought you'd find the contrast between these two articles stunning. The
Left is doing a hatchet job on Wolfowitz for obvious reason so he asked that
the bank release all his records. Read this from the NYT.

"Time for Mr. Wolfowitz to Go"

The reason Paul Wolfowitz should resign as president of the World Bank . . . [is] because he made clean governance his main cause at the bank and has fallen far short of his own standards.

The facts are not in dispute. When Mr. Wolfowitz was appointed he was in a personal relationship with a woman employed there. Since working under Mr. Wolfowitz’s supervision would violate the bank’s conflict-of-interest rules, she was reassigned to the State Department, where she initially worked under Liz Cheney, the vice president’s daughter.

She remained on the bank’s payroll, and it now turns out that Mr. Wolfowitz helped arrange for her to receive a whopping $60,000 raise. Mr. Wolfowitz has launched a full rearguard action, apologizing to the staff, pledging full cooperation with any investigation, and appealing to staff members not to hold his “previous job” against him.

Now compare that gem of New York Times' opinion writing with the somewhat more substantive and factually developed one from the WSJ:

"The Wolfowitz Files"

The anatomy of a World Bank smear.

The World Bank released its files in the case of President Paul Wolfowitz's ethics on Friday, and what a revealing download it is. On the evidence in these 109 pages, it is clearer than ever that this flap is a political hit based on highly selective leaks to a willfully gullible press corps.

. . . The documents tell a very different story--one that makes us wonder if some bank officials weren't trying to ambush Mr. Wolfowitz from the start.

. . . The paper trail shows that Mr. Wolfowitz had asked to recuse himself from matters related to his girlfriend, a longtime World Bank employee, before he signed his own employment contract. The bank's general counsel at the time, Roberto Danino, wrote in a May 27, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz's lawyers:

"First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member." (Our emphasis here and elsewhere.)

That would have settled the matter at any rational institution, given that his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, worked four reporting layers below the president in the bank hierarchy. But the bank board--composed of representatives from donor nations--decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate. And it was the ethics committee that concluded that Ms. Riza's job entailed a "de facto conflict of interest" that could only be resolved by her leaving the bank.

Ms. Riza was on a promotion list at the time, and so the bank's ethicists also proposed that she be compensated for this blow to her career. In a July 22, 2005, ethics committee discussion memo, Mr. Danino noted that "there would be two avenues here for promotion--an 'in situ' promotion to Grade GH for the staff member" and promotion through competitive selection to another position." Or, as an alternative, "The Bank can also decide, as part of settlement of claims, to offer an ad hoc salary increase."

Five days later, on July 27, ethics committee chairman Ad Melkert formally advised Mr. Wolfowitz in a memo that "the potential disruption of the staff member's career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record . . ." In the same memo, Mr. Melkert recommends "that the President, with the General Counsel, communicates this advice" to the vice president for human resources "so as to implement" it immediately.

And in an August 8 letter, Mr. Melkert advised that the president get this done pronto: "The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction." Only then did Mr. Wolfowitz instruct Mr. Coll on the details of Ms. Riza's new job and pay raise.

Needless to say, none of this context has appeared in the media smears suggesting that Mr. Wolfowitz pulled a fast one to pad the pay of Ms. Riza. Yet the record clearly shows he acted only after he had tried to recuse himself but then wasn't allowed to do so by the ethics committee. And he acted only after that same committee advised him to compensate Ms. Riza for the damage to her career from a "conflict of interest" that was no fault of her own.

My comment: This is an incredibly transparent and ham-handed set-up of Mr. Wolfowitz. This is even more of a non-scandal then the fired U.S. Attorneys. And it is no surpise that the NYT buys into it completely. Is there nothing the New York Times will not dissemble about in order to see covervatives gutted and the far left take power in America? They need to be forced to reorganize as a 527 organization. Steve's comment: Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team.

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