Wolfowitz triggers graft storm at World Bank

[Stockholm]

Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, has triggered a bitter conflict with the bank’s senior career staff by empowering a group of close political advisers to pursue aggressively what he sees as widespread corruption surrounding bank projects.

The dispute has come to a head with the appointment last week of Suzanne Rich Folsom, a counsellor to Mr Wolfowitz with close ties to the Republican party, as the new director of the Department of Institutional Integrity, the internal bank watchdog that investigates suspected fraud and staff misconduct.

Her appointment has raised objections that a person close to Mr Wolfowitz, and with a political background, has been put into a senior position at a unit that was seen as independent of the president’s office since it was set up in 2001.

Robert Hindle, previously the senior manager of the unit and a long-time World Bank employee, resigned in November largely as a result of what four current and former bank sources said was concern at the targeting of employees who had worked on projects that developed corruption problems, and pressure on two occasions from Ms Rich Folsom to bypass internal rules on investigating the e-mail records of a number of employees.

more http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e125344e-8b8c-11da-91a1-0000779e2340.html

Neo-conservatives going global
:scared:

[acmavm]

1. Wolfie corrupt? Really? (My God, did anyone truly expect anything

else?)

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Wolfie just doesn't want to share the spoils

with anyone else it seems.

[Fridays Child]

17. Gosh, that was my first thought, as well.

Target the corruption in order to re-direct the spoils.

[rodeodance]

3. so--Wolfwitz is surrounding himself with like-minded persons. No

surprize. Of course he would do that.

[IndianaGreen]

4. The World Bank's destruction will be welcomed by the Left

Ironic that it would be a capitalist that will bring that about.

Neocons are the new breed of Fascists.

[RC]

5. And why would we welcome the destruction of the World Bank?

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Just sign up for a World Bank loan

as long as you don't mind giving up your sovereignty.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Do a Google on World Social Forum

and find out why neoliberalism and the World Bank and IMF are held in such low esteem by the peoples of the world.

[natrat]

8. are the world bank and imf related ?

i dont know the details but the imf is a big scam to benefit bankers---they give loans to small countries knowing they cant repay then sieze anything worth anything--look at what policies have done to south america-it's reprehensible--juust another scam with a sleazey pr division to sugarcoat theft

[1932]

14. What we really need to do is to make WB and IMF into what Keynes said they

should be: instruments for actually helping countries develop infrastructure and strong working classes, rather than instruments of exploitation which make the west wealthier.

[xchrom]

9. gasp -- wolfie involved in fishy business?!?!

lol -- now there's a surprise.

[Kagemusha]

10. You guys are misreading the article

It's saying that Wolfowiz is putting cronies into the position of ATTACKING corruption at the World Bank. Of course how you attack corruption with cronies is another issue but, the article is NOT saying what people are (not unnaturally) seeing it to say, which is that Wolfowitz himself is creating corruption in bank projects themselves. That seems not true at this time; he's busying himself attacking other peoples' corrupt projects and using the effort to centralize power.

[julianer]

11. It's all corrupt

whichever way the spoils get split up. Wolfie's just protecting his masters' money, IMO.

[shugah]

13. just reading more than what the article states

not really misreading - i read it more as "the only corruption wolfowitz will accept is his own." ;-)

[Kagemusha]

18. That's a fair way to look at it, yeah.

That's even how I am looking at it, just not how the article (per se..) presents it.

[druidity33]

15. fishing expo...

remember Annan and "oil for money"... they'll skew all relevant facts, and try and root out their most powerful enemies within the structure of the WB... typical rethug practices, force the majority... lie, cheat, steal.... all the while looking great to the MSM because they're "battling corruption"...

ugh, just plain stinks like poop...

...little bathroom stickers...

[Warren Stupidity]

19. Well perhaps.

But what is important here is that what was an independent agency within the worldbank targeted with rooting out corruption has now been placed under the more or less direct control of the president of the worldbank and by extension the neocon Cabal in Washington. What better way to purge your ideological enemies than to seize control of the internal investigations unit? This is a classic power grab operation.

The European leaders who submitted to the appointment of Wolfowitz should commit ritual suicide to atone for this hideous blunder - a blunder that was so obvious at the time that even a naive idiot such as myself saw it for what it was.

[lagavulin]

20. This is absolutely correct.

Wolfowitz was previously responsible the "purgings" in the CIA of senior staffers who weren't on-board with the NeoCon agenda. Now he's evidently been appointed to do the same with the World Bank.

Corruption? I don't doubt it for a second. But corruption is not their biggest crime in Washington's eyes.

[ktlyon]

21. out with the old in with the new

power move

[leveymg]

12. Some money was being syphoned off to help the poor.

Send in Arthur Anderson to do the audit -- they'll show you the corruption. Won't they, Wolfie?

[loudsue]

16. To help the poor?? LOL!! When hell freezes over!!

:rofl: That's pretty funny!

:kick:

[Supersedeas]

22. Ms. Rich Folsom to head the Dept of Integrity - lol lol lol

[Yavin4]

23. The World Bank Is The 21st Century Version of Slavery

Any way you cut it, that's what it is modern-day slavery. In fact, it's an improvement over slavery. It accomplishes the same things without the visible forms of slavery which could trigger international action and sympathy. It's hard to visually depict the effects of debt.