Bush to Recommend Wolfowitz for World Bank Post By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 16, 2005 Filed at 10:33 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush will recommend that Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz take over as head of the World Bank, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
Wolfowitz has been Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top deputy and a lightning rod for criticism over the U.S. invasion of Iraq and other defense policies.
The administration began notifying other countries that Wolfowitz was the U.S. candidate to replace World Bank President James Wolfensohn, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made. Wolfensohn is stepping down as head of the 184-nation development bank on June 1 at the end of his second five-year term.
The United States is the World Bank's largest member nation. The bank traditionally has had an American president. Its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, traditionally has been headed by a European.
Bush, during a news conference Wednesday, noted that he had called Premier Silvio Berlusconi to talk about Iraq and other issues earlier in the day and also said that he had discussed Wolfowitz, ``my nominee,'' with the Italian leader.
Wolfowitz, 61, was sworn into his post at the Defense Department in March 2001, marking his third tour of duty at the Pentagon.
He was regarded as more academic and ideological than his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz was among the most forceful of those in the Bush administration in arguing that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he had predicted that Americans would be welcomed as liberators rather than occupiers once they toppled Saddam's government.
Wolfowitz, a veteran of six administrations, has earned a reputation for being a foreign policy hawk -- the view that the United States should use its superpower status to push for reforms in other nations. A conservative scholar, Wolfowitz, before taking over the Defense Department post, had served as dean and professor of international relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Administration supporters of Wolfowitz said Wednesday he is suited for the World Bank post and pointed to his management experiences at the Pentagon and his diplomatic experience at the State Department. He had served as assistant secretary of State for east Asia during the Philippine transition to democracy. He also serves as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia.
Wolfensohn, bank president since June 1, 1995, emphasized reducing poverty in developing nations and making lending projects more effective. Previously, he headed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and was a Wall Street investment banker for 20 years.
The Bush administration has been pushing for major reforms in how the World Bank operates, especially interested in having the development bank dole out aid in the forms of grants, which don't have to be repaid, rather than loans.
A number of people were said to have been in the running as his successor, among them Carly Fiorina, the recently ousted chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co.; John Taylor, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for international affairs; Peter McPherson, the former head of Michigan State University who served as Bush's point man on rebuilding Iraq's financial system; Randall Tobias, Bush's global AIDS coordinator; and Christine Todd Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
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