World Bank workers see Wolfowitz as a world apart
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World Bank workers see Wolfowitz as a world apart
Longtime employees say his cadre of GOP aides limit their access to
the organization's already remote president.
By Nicole Gaouette
Times Staff Writer
May 11, 2007
WASHINGTON - In the tense days after World Bank President Paul D.
Wolfowitz admitted his mistake in arranging a generous payment package
for his girlfriend, angry employees launched an impromptu campaign.
Blue ribbons started cropping up on lapels, taped to doors and as an
image in e-mails - a symbol of support for the bank's ideals of good
governance and transparency.
The curls of fabric were seen by many of the more than 7,000 staffers
in Washington as a silent but clear call for their leader to resign.
Then Wolfowitz himself was seen wearing one.
For employees chafing against his leadership, that blunder became a
vivid example of Wolfowitz's isolation from the bank's employees - a
remoteness that has left him with few allies inside the international
poverty-fighting institution as he battles to keep his job.
A political scientist and former Pentagon official known for his
analytical skills and predilection for sweeping, visionary ideas,
Wolfowitz also has a reputation for remaining aloof from day-to-day
management decisions. At the World Bank, he brought in a tightknit
cadre of aides - all onetime GOP political operatives with no
experience in development projects - who limited the access of bank
veterans to the new president.
These aides, according to more than a dozen World Bank employees who
spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their jobs,
showed little patience for bank practices, excluded veteran staff
experts from negotiations over development plans for countries and
went around managers to quiz staff about their work.
"When he arrived at the World Bank, he began by listening very
carefully," said Sebastian Mallaby, author of a book on the World
Bank. "But it emerged after six months or so that all of this would go
in one ear and out the other. When it really came time to do
something, he appeared to fall back on the advice of three people he
had brought with him from the outside. The internal experts were
feeling more and more out of the loop. That set Wolfowitz up."
Wolfowitz has apologized to his staff for the arrangements for his
companion, a World Bank employee on loan to the State Department,
saying: "I made a mistake for which I am sorry." And he has promised a
management shake-up. One top aide has already resigned, and another
was recently moved to an office farther away from Wolfowitz.
*
Tough social dynamic
Through his lawyer, Wolfowitz declined to comment, but he has
previously criticized bank staff for what he called "a conscious
campaign to undermine my effectiveness as president and derail
important programs."
Former Wolfowitz colleagues argue that bank staff were inclined from
the start to dislike the former deputy secretary of Defense,
regardless of whom he brought with him. Wolfowitz is seen as a
principal architect of the war in Iraq, which much of the bank staff
opposes.
"To understand his situation, one would first have to understand what
he inherited - the social dynamics," said retired Army Maj. Gen. John
Batiste, referring to the staff hostility toward Wolfowitz. A former
senior military assistant to Wolfowitz during his tenure at the
Pentagon, Batiste said he was in constant contact with Wolfowitz for
15 months during the Iraq war.
"Paul Wolfowitz is a hardworking, brilliant man," Batiste said. "He
was patient, decisive when he needed to be, thoughtful."
Fred C. Iklé, a friend and former undersecretary for Defense policy in
the Reagan administration, is perplexed by the critique of Wolfowitz -
who took Iklé's job at the Pentagon. "He was very open to looking for
outside advice; he reached out to different people," Iklé said.
But he acknowledged that Wolfowitz faced a much greater challenge at
the World Bank, with its 185 member countries and more than $23
billion in grants and loans worldwide. "That was a different job. It
requires a different style if you're the top guy," Iklé said.
At 63, Wolfowitz is familiar, comfortable even, in the role of an
outsider working within the power structure.
In the early 1970s, he came to Washington after teaching at Yale
University and joined a band of neoconservatives who advocated the use
of unilateral, muscular U.S. power. They were a lonely crew in a city
dominated by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger's pragmatic
approach to foreign policy. Wolfowitz quickly learned to create his
own networks and distrust conventional wisdom.
Under then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush, he worked on a team whose
job it was to buck the status-quo thinking about military threats. In
the late 1970s, as a Pentagon analyst, he went against the grain,
pegging Iraq as a threat to surrounding states more than a decade
before the first Persian Gulf War.
Wolfowitz's reputation as a visionary who argued that America should
use its power to make the world a better place appealed to the staff
at the bank. He "has compassion for poor people and thus believes in
the mission of the bank," said a recently retired employee.
When he arrived almost two years ago, Wolfowitz vigorously embraced a
campaign to eliminate corruption in World Bank projects, a mission
started by the previous president. But some on the staff began to take
issue with how Wolfowitz ran the effort. Staff and aid groups
criticized Wolfowitz, saying he ignored the advice of longtime experts
and pursued a political agenda - targeting some countries for
corruption, but overlooking U.S. allies in the war on terrorism.
"India was corrupt, but Pakistan could do no wrong," said the retired
employee.
*
A hard edge
Bank staff interviewed for this article had little praise for
Wolfowitz's management style. They described him as a remote and
indecisive leader with a hard edge.
One staffer, who waited 18 months for Wolfowitz to weigh in on a high-
priority matter, said employees were put off by "how opaquely
Wolfowitz's office made a decision" and the lack of response to their
overtures. "I must have sent papers up with options ... 10 times, but
heard nothing," the staffer said.
This staffer said Wolfowitz came across as self-deprecating, but also
said "there were signs that that was not the core of him." The staffer
recalled an early meeting at which "he barked at someone because he
didn't like the way they were rattling the coffee cups."
Bank critics also said the president seemed disinclined to delve into
most policy details. One senior employee recounted a meeting about
improving national diversity among the staff, a priority request from
the board. The group worked for 18 months and presented Wolfowitz with
two options. But at the meeting, the employee said Wolfowitz told the
group he had not read their briefing book or their one-page summary,
and he seemed unable to make a choice. "We saw dithering, speculating,
as if he was at a graduate seminar," said the employee.
When the group prepared its final report, Wolfowitz's aides directed
them to leave out the section on national diversity. "It was a
phenomenally inept assessment of the board's needs - totally tone-
deaf," said the senior employee.
A three-decade bank veteran said that same quality was evident in
Wolfowitz's personal interactions. At one event to celebrate employees
marking long-term anniversaries at the bank, spouses were invited to
meet the president. Wolfowitz gave a quick speech, then returned to
his office.
"This is an opportunity to win friends; he's been there a year and a
half, and this is how he runs the event," the veteran said, adding
that Wolfowitz had "zero emotional intelligence."
Some employees said that Wolfowitz favored his handpicked aides so
much that he would blame their mistakes on the professional staff.
One staffer recounted Wolfowitz shouting at colleagues for failing to
provide information on the bank's Middle East strategy. The group had
given it to his staff days earlier, but his staff had failed to pass
it along.
"Rather than say, 'I'm very sorry,' he continued to berate us as if we
were children, not competent adults. Every time we said, 'You're
misinformed,' he would come at it from a different angle, never, ever
admitting he or his staff might be at fault," the staffer said.
Some of the employees interviewed for this article said their anger
was rooted in concern that Wolfowitz was damaging the bank's
credibility and its mission. But some also spoke of a certain
inevitability to the situation - not based on the initial reception
when Wolfowitz came to the bank, but on the way he dealt with it after
that.
"You could see him as a guy who knows he's walked into a hostile
organization that hasn't embraced his nomination. I can understand
that in the beginning," said the recently retired employee. "But
people came to him and said, 'We're international civil servants, not
politicians; let's make things work.' That hand was extended, and it
was not extended back."
*
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
Paul D. Wolfowitz
Age: 63
Birthplace: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Government career: Management intern, U.S. Bureau of the Budget,
1966-67; U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1973-77; deputy
assistant secretary for regional programs, Defense Department,
1977-80; director of policy planning, State Department, 1981-82;
assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, State
Department, 1982-86; U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, 1986-89;
undersecretary for policy, Defense Department, 1989-93; deputy
secretary, Defense Department, 2001-05; president, World Bank, 2005-
present
Academic career: Political science professor, Yale University,
1970-73; professor, National Defense University, 1993; dean, Paul H.
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University, 1994-2001
Education: Bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry, Cornell
University, 1965; doctorate in political science, University of
Chicago, 1972
Personal: Divorced; two daughters and a son
Los Angeles Times
**
A bank with a mission
The World Bank is not a bank in the traditional sense but a lending
institution that provides low-interest loans, interest-free credit and
grants to developing countries, with the mission of global poverty
reduction. Here's a look at how it operates:
President: Paul D. Wolfowitz, since June 2005
Membership: 185 countries
Headquarters: Washington, D.C., and more than 100 country offices
Staff: About 10,000
Established: July 1, 1944
**
The World Bank Group consists of several agencies, including:
* International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD):
Provides loans to middle-income countries and credit-worthy poor
countries. Fiscal 2006 lending: $14.1 billion in 33 countries.
* International Development Assn. (IDA): Focuses on the poorest
countries. Fiscal 2006 commitments: $9.5 billion in 59 countries.
**
Lending in 2006
Where the $23.6 billion went
For fiscal 2006, by region:
Latin America & Caribbean -- 25%
Africa -- 20%
Europe & Central Asia -- 17%
South Asia -- 16%
East Asia & Pacific -- 14%
Middle East & northern Africa -- 7%
**
Top borrowers
About one-third of the $23.6 billion in 2006 went to five countries.
In billions:
Mexico - $1.8
Brazil - $1.7
Turkey - $1.5
Pakistan - $1.5
China - $1.5
**
By sector
Law, justice and public administration: 25%
Transportation: 14%
Health & other social services: 9%
Finance: 10%
Other: 29%
--
Source: World Bank. Graphics reporting by Julie Sheer