Whatta Guy!

Paul Wolfowitz once served as Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld, and was part of the very exclusive brain trust,

( I jest), which developed the "rationale" for invading Iraq. He left the Bush administration jn 2005, to take over as president of The World Bank.

Since then, in less than two years, he's had clashes with his board of directors, alienating the very guys who hired him (I guess he keeps forgetting these guys aren't Congress).He has populated his staff with an impressive number of Republican cronies, (he's had some trouble transitioning from his old government job, I'd say...) and now, he is undergoing a serious ethics investigation.

Just to refresh your memory a bit, Wolfowitz was the guy who helped develop, and then popularized the Administration's foreign policy thinking, their theories about Iraq, and their efforts to bring stability to the Middle East once and for all!

For example: When General Shinseki testified before Congress, in 2003, that we might need several hundred thousand troops to win the peace in Iraq, after the invasion, Wolfowitz called bullshit! Shinseki had been in charge in Bosnia. Iraq wasn't Bosnia. There'd be no ethnic strife, no civil war! Wolfowitz assured Congress once again, that the Iraqis would welcome a liberation force led by America!

And then, because he was on a roll, Wolfowitz teased out his fantasies even further, telling Congress that even the countries who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq would sign up to help rebuild it! Even France! And the cost of rebuilding Iraq would be offset because everyone knew Iraq had oil exports worth $15 to $20 billion annually. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just all wrong." said Paul.

The testimony I will never forget was offered before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Foreign Operations in 2004. He, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, was asked how many servicemen and women had been killed in Iraq? A pretty elementary question. There was a long moment of awkward silence, then a fumble. He couldn't tell them how many U.S. service men had lost their lives. He understated it by 30%. In fact, for a banker, Wolfowitz doesn't seem to be very good with numbers, not even willing to tell the Armed Services Committee a week earlier how much of an $87 billion supplemental package Congress had given DOD for the war in Iraq, the previous fiscal year, had been spent.

But getting back to the present controversy: Why, you might ask, is Paul Wolfowitz, a thoroughly vetted, certified paragon of sobriety, being challenged about his ethics??? How dare anyone question this man, who has no equal, not even Kissinger, when it comes to being really smart! No one is held in higher esteem in the circles in which he travels.

Well, apparently Mr. Wolfowitz has a girlfriend. Yeah. She worked in the communications department at the World Bank. The guys who agreed to hire him (and shame on them!) thought it wouldn't look right, so for appearances' sake, Wolfowitz sent her off to...the U.S. State Department, with a compensation package in excess of $200,000. Seriously. They weren't using the State Department all that much so it seemed like it would work out.

Now, with the Spring Meeting of the World Bank getting ready to convene, its staff is calling for Wolfowitz to resign and the board is conducting an ethics investigation. In the world of realpolitik, Mr. Wolfowitz is enjoying a lesson in physics: the ripple effects of being too close to a lame duck.

Copyright, 2007