Date published: 2005/03/01
The Financial Times says (subscription service):
Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy secretary of defence, has emerged as a leading candidate to replace James Wolfensohn as the president of the World Bank.
Mr Wolfowitz is one of a small number of people being considered for the US nomination, administration insiders said.
The nomination of Mr Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of the Iraq war and a former US ambassador to Indonesia, would likely be highly controversial, and could raise new questions about the process by which the World Bank chief is selected. One administration official said his nomination "would have enormous repercussions within the development community".
Others on the US shortlist include Randall Tobias, former head of Eli Lilly and the administration's co-ordinator on Aids.
Leadership of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund is decided by all the shareholders in the institutions. But the US and Europe in effect divide up the top jobs, with an American heading the bank and a European running the fund.
So far this is just gossip, but it's hard to imagine Wolfowitz would be any better or worse than anybody else Bush nominated. Bush only cares about loyalty, not talent or integrity. Just because Wolfowitz was deeply involved with the Iraq fiasco does not mean he is a con (but the name "neocon" rather gives the game away). And he is still widely admired in Indonesia, and presumably elsewhere in Asia, so he might do a better job than expected (a low threshold, given that Bush manages to screw up everything he touches).
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