WP,pg1: Wolfowitz Strives To Quell Criticism: Bolstering Image

Wolfowitz Strives To Quell Criticism
World Bank Nominee Bolstering Image

By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 21, 2005; Page A01


He has telephoned Bono, the Irish rock star who champions the cause of Africa's poor. He has granted interviews to French newspapers, planned visits to European officials and praised his prospective staffers.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, the man tapped by President Bush to become president of the World Bank, is energetically reaching out to his critics in the hope of persuading them that he would do a lot better at heading the bank than they might think. He appears to be making progress. But as the neoconservative hawk best known as the brains behind the war in Iraq, he has his job cut out for him.

Since the announcement Wednesday, Bush's choice of Wolfowitz has drawn opposition from many quarters, mostly focusing on the fear that the move marked a plan to use the World Bank's antipoverty aid to reward Washington's friends, punish its enemies and advance the Bush administration's ideological agenda, especially in the Middle East. The bank lends about $20 billion a year to developing countries for projects ranging from roads to schools to HIV/AIDS programs.

"The world would view a bank directed by Mr. Wolfowitz as no more than an instrument of U.S. power and U.S. priorities," Britain's Financial Times wrote in an editorial, warning that the credibility of the bank's advice to poor countries would be undermined. With anti-globalization activists in an uproar over the nomination, predictions abounded that demonstrations against the bank, which have subsided in the past couple of years, would erupt anew. "We'll finally be able to use the word 'imperialism' about bank policy without raising eyebrows," chortled Soren Ambrose, an activist with the coalition 50 Years Is Enough Network, a critic of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52375-2005Mar20.html

Hmm.. Can a neocon wolf like Wolfowitz really change his spots?

I would be.. very.. suspicious.

Sue

but he is still a wolf.

because I am honest and ethical. Why is this concept so difficult for a Bushista to comprehend?

:puke:

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

And who was it that set up the OSP, "Office of Special Plans", to stove-pipe all that "WMD in Iraq" evidence?

Paul Wolfowitz.

Who was it that admitted "there had been lies" by the bushCartel to rally Americans for an illegal supreme crime war of aggression?

Paul Wolfowitz.

Who was it that urged bush to use the forged Niger uranium documents as "proof" that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake?

Paul Wolfowitz.

there is no more bottom

US agrees to approve EU's WTO candidate:

"The Wolfowitz nomination will also be discussed tomorrow at the EU summit meeting in Luxembourg but it is thought that acquiescence may possibly buy an assurance that Pascal Lamy will be nominated to head the WTO. Nobody is in the mood for a fight with the US and nobody wants be seen as throwing the first stone or being held responsible for poisoning the atmosphere so soon after George Bush's charm offensive in Europe a few weeks ago."

http://europe.tiscali.co.uk/index.jsp?section=Current%20Affairs&level=preview&content=336643

don't worry about theh toxic content - just put a bow upon it which has been market tested and verified to convince most folks that the pretty bow neutralizes all the toxin.

Wolfie has some big shoes to fill at the World Bank. He will be hard pressed to do more damage to more people than Robert McNamara did during his tenure. I have heard estimates that more poor and indigenous people died as a result of the "austerity" programs demanded by McNamara's policies than died as a result of the carpet bombing of North Vietnam that he ordered.

me.