Wolfowitz Watch

Wolfowitz weds African Muslim 'in absentia'

2005-09-26T08:01:00.001-07:00

Wolfowitz weds African Muslim �in absentia�: "Wolfowitz weds African Muslim ‘in absentia’

Press Trust of India
Posted online: Monday, September 26, 2005 at 1024 hours IST

Washington, September 26: World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz "recently" married - in absentia - his colleague Shaha Riza whom he had been dating since long, unnoticed by the American media and revealed by an Indian non-governmental activist.

When Wolfowitz and IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato met with civil society organisations headed by Aruna Rao, founder-director of Gender at Work and board chair of Civicus (world alliance for civilian participation) and who currently heads the secretariat for the Global Call for Action against poverty, Rao began the conversation saying to Wolfowitz " I understand congratulations are in order for your recent marriage this afternoon.

Wolfowitz responded: "thank you."

Rao added "and we hope that despite the recent marriage you will be open to a liaison with civil society organizations."
"

Wolfowitz weds African Muslim 'in absentia'

2005-09-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Is Wolfowitz a Threat?

2005-09-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Is Wolfowitz a Threat?

By Azam Mohebbi

Political and economic analysts contend that the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz to World Bank (WB) presidency is meant chiefly to punish the Europeans, stressing that the development could also pose a threat to political and economic equations involving independent states, like Iran.
This group of experts believes that the US undersecretary of defense was appointed to head the most powerful global economic body as part of Washington’s policies to show the Europeans who the boss is.
“I think this initiative comes as part of US efforts to show its hostilities to France and Germany, in particular,“ said Mehdi Taqavi, an economic analyst.
He told Iran Daily that the US could use other mechanisms for exerting pressures on Iran, stressing that while Wolfowitz has already taken a sharper snipe at Iran than his predecessors, the operators of the US foreign policy perform almost in the same way.
“It really doesn’t matter for Iran who the WTO chief is and which political line of thoughts he follows,“ he said, adding that the Islamic state has to strengthen first and foremost its international trade interaction.
On Iran’s debts to the World Bank, the expert said that the Islamic Republic is only indebted to Japan and some European countries and that it has never received loans from the US.
He said Iran has so far received a few hundred million dollars worth of WB loans, adding that the financial facilities have been used mainly to rehabilitate waste water management systems.
Taqavi says Iran’s bid on start of its WTO negotiations has already been rejected 22 times before Wolfowitz took office last month.
He called on senior officials of the country to help improve economic and political interaction with powerful countries, adding, however, that there would always be a price to pay for establishing closer ties with such countries.
Another expert, Zahra Hajj Mohammad Kashi, told Iran Daily that the WTO appointment serves as a threat to the global economy. “A sworn enemy of the Islamic Republic is now going to run global trade,“ she said, adding that all international economic and political equations would be affected by this decision.
The nomination surprised the international community as Wolfowitz was seen by many as an architect of the Iraq war and his hard-line foreign policy stance has made him a target of critics at home and abroad.
The appointment of Wolfowitz to WB presidency is unlikely to have a major impact on the bank’s outlook as the bank has never had a non-US chief.
The World Bank has approved the nomination of the US deputy defense secretary to be its next president, succeeding James Wolfensohn starting from June 1.
Wolfowitz, 61, was nominated by US President George W. Bush."

FT.com / Arts & Weekend - Loan wolf - Wolfowitz's Neo-Trotskyite Path at the World Bank

2005-09-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

FT.com / Arts & Weekend - Loan wolf: "Loan wolf
By Andrew Balls
Published: September 23 2005 16:34 | Last updated: September 23 2005 16:34

The speakers in the lobby of the World Bank’s headquarters in New Delhi play a plinky-plinky version of the theme tune from Chariots of Fire. It is 6pm on a Saturday evening in August and after a week of back-to-back meetings, receptions and dinners, Paul Wolfowitz has at last found a chance to escape.

The new president of the World Bank has decided he wants to visit a slum where the bank has been sponsoring a project providing computer kiosks to help children learn how to work and play online. He hasn’t told any of his security aides about the change in plan. (If you ask anyone about this kind of thing, he tells a colleague, you always get a “no”.) Wherever he has been on this trip, 20 or more vehicles have followed him - police vans, an ambulance and sometimes a fire engine. This time he wants a quieter visit. His Washington security chief understands, and after some fast and frank negotiations with the less understanding Indian police, two cars pull up to the door for Wolfowitz and his staff, followed by just three police jeeps. We speed off through Delhi’s busy streets in Wolfowitz’s car - a white Mercedes with dark bulletproof glass - our conversation punctuated by the constant honking of the horn.

Ten minutes later we are in a slum in the south of the city called Vivekananda Camp. Two television cameramen and a few photographers have been tipped off, and have beaten us here. Wolfowitz throws his jacket on to the back seat and strides off, security agents and police hurrying after him.

Most of this trip has been taken up with meetings of government leaders and World Bank officials, but there is no doubt that part of it has been designed to soften the harsh image Wolfowitz earned in his last job of deputy defense secretary, where he was a leading advocate and architect of the Iraq war.

This has occasionally led to surprising sights: after a crowd of brightly painted dancers arrived to welcome Wolfowitz to their village in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh one day earlier in the week, he suddenly jumped out of his car and started dancing with them in the street.

There is no dancing at Vivekananda Camp, where Wolfowitz is soon on a narrow path weaving through the modest houses. He puts his hands together, prayer-like at chest level, and bobs his head to people, offering them the traditional Indian greeting of “Namaste”, “I bow to you.” People cook outside on fires and sanitation is primitive - a stream of nasty-looking water runs along the path. But this is long way from being Delhi’s poorest neighbourhood. The houses are small and rickety, but, Wolfowitz points out, the roofs are well covered.

By the time he reaches the three computer terminals, built into a wall like ATM machines, he is surrounded by about 90 people, mostly children. Two of the bright yellow hatches on the computers turn out to be closed because of a power cut, a common problem here. The third one runs on batteries and Wolfowitz heads to it to inspect what it offers: games, in Hindi and English, and internet access. He tries to ask the kids what they use them for, but many can’t understand him. One teenaged boy, dressed all in white, turns out to have learned English at the nearby American School. Wolfowitz asks him to translate and turning to the crowd of children says, “Raise your hands if you do your homework.” All the hands shoot up, amid much laughter.

When the photographers ask him to pose for the camera, Wolfowitz picks up a sweet-looking little boy and hoists him up to get him in the shot. As he is saying goodbye, a camera is thrust in his face and a TV reporter, talking quickly, fires questions at him about Iraq. Wolfowitz says politely that he is here to visit the computer project, but now he has to go, and starts back down the path.

For a man who will be 62 in December, Paul Wolfowitz looks youthful. He is tall and pigeon-toed; his hair used to be dark but is now mostly grey, perhaps because of the stress of his last job. Although he has spent most of his career in government service he still has the demeanour of an academic. Ask him a question and he often pauses a long time before answering, sometimes for so long it becomes disconcerting.

In meetings, he is happy to sit and listen to others speak, but when he talks he makes incisive points and asks sharp questions. Senior bank staff who have spent time with him seem to be uniformly impressed by his intelligence. He relishes discussion and debate, and does not mind being told he is wrong - something that bank insiders say could not be said of his predecessor, James Wolfensohn. Wolfowitz is clearly very different to Wolfensohn; less charismatic but also less ego-driven.

My first visit to Wolfowitz’s office was revealing: when Wolfensohn was in it, the walls were covered with more than 100 photographs of him and world leaders. Now it is almost bare, just a couple of photographs of Wolfowitz’s son and two daughters on the window ledge. The new president says he does not plan to adorn the walls, adding with a smile that given some of the leaders he has come across in the past, you never know when you might have to take the photographs down again.

It is an open secret that President Bush gave Wolfowitz the choice of the World Bank presidency nomination or the US ambassadorship to the United Nations. For a long-time admirer of the bank with much less time for the UN, the decision was an easy one - even though his background is in security policy, not development. (The UN post, of course, went to John Bolton.)

Born in New York, Wolfowitz is the son of a Polish immigrant father, Jacob, who moved to the US as a child and became an academic mathematician. Wolfowitz seemed set to follow a similar course, majoring in mathematics and chemistry at Cornell University - where his father was a professor - before disappointing his family by heading off to do a PhD in political science, rather than mathematics, at the University of Chicago.

Wolfowitz taught briefly at Yale University, before holding a series of jobs in the Defense and State departments. He is proud of his record, as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the 1980s, of pushing for democracy in the Philippines during the Marcos regime and, as he put it in an interview, “helping to see Marcos out of Manila”.

Later in the 1980s, as US ambassador to Indonesia, he addressed, in very diplomatic language, the problem of the Suharto regime’s corruption.

Behind the scenes he pushed the World Bank to address the issue more directly, bank staff from the time remember. During the Clinton years he returned to academia as dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.

The promotion of democracy has been one of the most consistent themes of his career. As a leading neoconservative, he believes in the use of US might to advance democracy abroad. Because of this, and his role in the Iraq war and its troubled aftermath, it is no secret that a large chunk of the bank’s staff was appalled when he got the job last June. (There was a similar reaction in some European finance and development ministries, but national leaders gave their backing and Wolfowitz was approved by unanimous vote at the bank’s board.)

There is an obvious comparison between Wolfowitz and Robert McNamara, the controversial Vietnam war defense secretary who resigned from the Pentagon to head the World Bank. But when I asked Wolfowitz about the comparison, he said: “I don’t know if it is fair to put that label on him - but I certainly was not running away from my old job. I would have stayed there very happily if this hadn’t come along as, you know, a more exciting opportunity.”

As for Iraq, he said: “I don’t want to get into an argument with all the people around here who might have a different view, but I still think that what the US, UK and others did for Iraq was the right thing and done for the right reasons. And hopefully it’s going to turn out the right way.” He added that wherever he had travelled recently, from Burkina Faso to Bosnia, Iraq had hardly come up at all.

And inside the World Bank, people are far more interested in what their new leader plans to do with the world’s leading development organisation. Wolfowitz has been so busy since he started at the bank that he has had relatively little time for informal discussions with senior staff. Of those he has spoken to, several said he had been so cautious that they had little idea what his plans were.

He brought two lieutenants with him: Robin Cleveland, former associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, who helped to secure funding for the war in Iraq, and Kevin Kellems, a former adviser to Wolfowitz at the Pentagon who was also a spokesman for vice-president Dick Cheney. Both are new to the bank and have little expertise in development, which has ruffled some feathers. Staff are happier with Wolfowitz’s choice of the head of his office, Letitia Obeng, a Ghanaian national with broad experience at the bank who has worked in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

It is hardly surprising that Wolfowitz should have brought in some old and trusted advisers. The World Bank group is a huge, sprawling bureaucracy, with 184 member countries, more than 10,000 employees, five separate agencies and 26 vice-presidents of one sort or another.

It is well known that Wolfowitz has not been impressed by all the vice-presidents he has met. He has spent relatively little time at the bank’s Washington headquarters, so this impression may change, but insiders expect a shake-up of the top management team.

Since Wolfowitz was appointed he has spoken regularly to Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s technocratic prime minister, whom Wolfowitz knew from his academic days. When he visited Aziz in Pakistan last month there was a rumour Wolfowitz wanted to appoint Aziz to a top position at the bank. Wolfowitz has dismissed such speculation, saying Aziz was too valuable in Pakistan to even consider trying to lure him away - but there are many at the bank in Washington who will not be surprised if Aziz joins at a later date.

Others who have influenced his thinking on development and the bank include Sir Nick Stern, the British academic and former World Bank chief economist who was policy director of Tony Blair’s Commission on Africa. More controversially, Wolfowitz has spoken a few times to Professor Allan Meltzer, chairman of the US Congressional Commission on reforming international financial institutions. The commission’s 2000 report criticised the bank for being overstaffed, inefficient and bureaucratic. It recommended that the bank should pull out of lending to middle-income nations (a view Wolfowitz has so far shown little sign of promoting) and focus on grants rather than loans for the poorest African countries.

Wolfowitz is modest about his knowledge of the bank, saying he has much to learn from its staff and from country visits. “For me this is an unusual opportunity to go back to graduate school,” he said at one meeting in Islamabad one night.

He is equally modest about making grand statements. Sitting in a deserted restaurant in Delhi last month, he was sceptical about the “vision thing” when I asked him what he was planning to say at this weekend’s annual World Bank meetings in Washington, an important gathering of finance and development ministers and the bank’s senior management.

”Everyone thinks it’s a time when I should lay out my vision,” he said, smiling. “I honestly find that a slightly pretentious description. But in the sense that I am a new leader, and that it is a very presidentially orientated organisation in many ways, I think it is important to lay out a common vision. A lot of it is going to be based on things I am hearing from other people. If it were my personal vision I don’t think it would take hold terribly well, so it will reflect both my sense of where we ought to go and something I think people are ready to support. Vision is a little grandiose. Setting priorities, as much as anything, I think is a big part of it.”

But what exactly are his priorities? After more than half a dozen conversations with Wolfowitz, and more with others close to him, it seems clear the new president will make sure that the bank’s main concern will remain Africa, the first continent he visited after his appointment.

Sub-Saharan Africa is unquestionably where the bank’s work is most needed. Numerically, there are more people living in abject poverty in China and India, but unlike Africa those countries have fast-growing economies, functioning states and a 20-year record on reducing poverty. Fears that the neocon hawk might try to reorientate the bank towards promoting democracy in the Middle East, and away from fighting poverty in Africa, are far-fetched.

Wolfowitz would like his legacy at the bank to be the moment when Africa shifted on to a sustainable development path, which is no small ambition. “I am not naive. It’s a huge challenge and the bank is only a small part of the answer, but if the world and the sub-continent can rise to that challenge, it would be wonderful to feel that we made a difference,” he says.

Wolfowitz sees an important role for aid, but is very sceptical of the idea that the only path to successful development is for rich countries to give poor ones enough money. Pointing to south-east Asia and China, which did not rely on financial aid, he says it is a “fallacy” to think spending money is all that is needed to reach targets such as the eight “Millennium Development Goals” that commit the international community to address a range of development challenges by 2015, from extreme poverty to access to education. Money, he says, “is a necessary but far from sufficient condition”.

As for what he calls “the development process”, he says “my feeling is that we understand about half of it, and about half of it is a mystery, almost”. He thinks it is affected by much more than strictly economic factors. “Leadership is a huge factor, both good and bad leadership, and one of the things that seems to be changing in Africa is that the ratio of good leaders to bad leaders seems to be going up significantly.”

One area in which Wolfowitz may differ from his predecessor is the central importance of economic growth in reducing poverty. James Wolfensohn was sometimes criticised for being too willing to please non-government organisations - and some within the bank - who opposed making growth the top priority. Wolfowitz has been clear from the start: “It’s just an inescapable fact you can’t make serious dents in poverty without sustained growth over a considerable period of time.”

The bank’s new action plan for Africa is laden with references to private sector-led growth in areas such as agriculture and regional trade. A recent report by the bank’s Operations Evaluation Department, an independent unit that analyses its loans and grants, said the organisation needed to refocus on promoting growth and investing in infrastructure. Spending more on health and education projects alone, for example, would not by itself reduce poverty. Wolfowitz appears to agree with the broad thrust of that report. During most of Wolfensohn’s time at the bank, there was a shift away from large-scale infrastructure projects, though at the demand of borrowing countries there had been a greater focus in the last couple of years. Wolfowitz aims to take this much further. He is committed to increasing the bank’s investment in hydropower, roads, water and telecommunications and while he says the bank must learn from mistakes of the past, he adds that it won’t cave in to protests from environmental and social activists.

Wolfowitz also wants to do more to measure the results of the bank’s loans and spending, so donor countries can see that the money it hands out is well-used. This goes hand-in-hand with his aim of building on James Wolfensohn’s efforts to decentralise bank decision-making. Sitting on a 10-seater private jet last month, as we set off from Islamabad to Lahore, Wolfowitz told me about a conversation he had with Pakistan’s prime minister Aziz, who used to be the head of Citibank for south-east Asia: “The point was he had virtually complete autonomy in deciding what loans to approve to his region. He did not take individual loans to his board or I think even to senior management. They reviewed his overall portfolio, his overall results. A corporation like that pays a lot of attention to how its managers are doing, but his point was they don’t get into individual details.”

The World Bank, he says, is a very different institution to a commercial bank, but he wants to explore ways to decentralise so that governments could get approval for loans and grants with its staff in their country, rather than having to deal with multiple layers of bureaucracy in Washington.

Wolfowitz is most passionate, and his views most distinctive, when talking about the politics of development. Speaking on the telephone earlier this month about how his thinking has developed since he started the job, he said: “I think I feel even more strongly than before that you can’t talk intelligently about development if you exclude anything that sounds political.”

One very political aspect of the job that Wolfowitz has thought about a lot is the importance of addressing corruption. He frequently talks of the good job Wolfensohn did in putting the issue on the bank’s agenda. Wolfowitz is very frank about corruption in his meetings with government leaders, and people present say that some African leaders he met during his trip were offended by this directness.

How will words be turned into actions? For a start, the bank under Wolfowitz will have zero tolerance for local officials skimming money off bank projects. His ambitions appear to go much further, however. While he has yet to reach firm conclusions, in countries where corruption and governance problems are judged to be big obstacles to development, he may insist that these issues are the centre of the bank’s country strategy.

But what would he do if the bank had a good project in a country with a lot of corruption at the local or central government level? In the past, the view has been that the bank should proceed with the project and try as far as possible to insulate it against corruption. More controversially, the bank could bypass government altogether and work through non-governmental organisations or private companies.

Wolfowitz said at a dinner with NGO leaders and academics in Pakistan that the bank’s mandate made it difficult to work this way, but he was looking for ways of doing it more often. “To try to change some fairly fundamental misbehaviour patterns, you’ve got to try to get people to understand that this is serious business and that it really is going to make a difference.”

Wolfowitz thinks the bank has shied away from confronting politically difficult challenges too much in the past. Driving through Delhi, I asked him how training as a political scientist affected his outlook at the bank and he said, after a long pause, “I think it’s in a general way an appreciation that economic policies take place in a political environment and against a political background, and that there is a difference between saying that the bank does not get involved in politics and saying the bank can afford to ignore politics.

”I sort of feel that at times - I think much less so now than in the past. There has been a feeling that staying out of politics means being politically tone-deaf, and that’s actually a way to get sucked into politics without knowing what is happening to you.”

Wolfowitz says that the World Bank “should not be in the business of withholding development assistance because of a political disagreement with a country”, but that it should address political matters when there are barriers to sustainable development. “Corruption, the role of women, governance and accountability, those are the things that are crucial to making sure that development dollars are well spent, that the development process is sustainable.

”It’s a fine line to walk. But I think if you set in front of yourself the question, what are the requirements of sustainable development? - as opposed to what are the things you may have some other issues about on political grounds? - and draw the line there, I think it can be found in practice.”

Wolfowitz openly makes a link between the need to fight corruption and his longstanding advocacy of democracy in those countries where it is lacking, arguing that corruption is a barrier to building democratic institutions. He often talks about the need for more representative government and a free press to help create the conditions for sustainable development, even though pressing such issues will not be popular with all the bank’s members.

”Listen to me, I am aware that I am no longer a US official but at the World Bank, a multinational institution,” he says. “But that does not mean we have to go to the lowest common denominator and only do things that every member agrees with. Of course we should not get into the business of having favourites in elections. But there is no way you can do development if you say that we are eunuchs when it comes to anything to do with politics.”

Some bank staffers who support such views nonetheless worry that he will run into controversy because of his history in the Bush administration. But he is unperturbed, making no secret of his belief that democracy promotes development, and that the two go hand-in-hand.

In Pakistan, for example, he says he sees the potential, over time, for a successful, democratic, modern Muslim state. “What the Muslim world needs, I believe, are examples of successful modern Muslim countries. And I use that term ‘modern Muslim’. I first heard that from a Jordanian who said to me, ‘I, as a modern Muslim... ‘ This was many years ago. And it’s an interesting and useful adjective, I think. It says more than just ‘moderate’. ‘Moderate’ implies a certain lack of conviction. Extremism is not a good thing so moderation in that respect is a good thing.”

An important part of this agenda is a focus on what the bank can do to help empower women in developing countries. Education and healthcare will remain priorities for the bank, but Wolfowitz is likely to focus its efforts on girls and women. “The role of women is something that has hit me very hard pretty much since my time in Indonesia, where you have a reasonably liberated female population in a predominantly Muslim country. And you can see that the country as a whole is the better off for it... It seems to me that it is an almost arithmetic equation that if half of the population is held back, then your development is going to be held back.”

Bank insiders say his thinking on this issue may have been influenced by Shaha Riza, a bank employee, Middle East expert and specialist on gender issues, with whom the divorced Wolfowitz has had a relationship for the past couple of years. “I have sympathy for someone who says that the Swedish model or the American model of relatively far-advanced feminism is not necessarily something that even women of other countries want,” he says. “But there is a point at which it is more than just a cultural thing and that is a fundamental violation of human rights and a fundamental denial of equality of opportunity, and when you do deny equal opportunity you are trying to run a race with one leg tied, sort of. And often your best leg.”

In Pakistan, last month, Wolfowitz heard a better analogy: at a meeting in the Punjabi village of Dhok Tabarak, a woman told him that development is like a cart: it has two wheels, and if one of the wheels is not turning you will not get very far. Wolfowitz was so taken with the metaphor that during the rest of his visit to Pakistan he quoted the woman on 20 or more occasions. After the first few times, he added a horse to the story, to represent economic growth. “If the cart does not have something strong to pull it - the horse is growth - then it does not matter how fast the wheels can turn.”

Of the three full days Wolfowitz spent in India, one day was spent talking to assorted groups of rural women about bank-sponsored development programmes. Women were also notably present at all his meetings in Pakistan and India and when I asked him if this was a deliberate policy that he intended to continue, he said that it was. “We can empower people simply by meeting with them; I think there’s a tendency to think that if the World Bank president meets with people then they must be important.”

Wolfowitz told me one day that someone had just described him as a feminist. He laughed, and said: “It is the first time in my life I’ve been called that, I certainly don’t think of myself in that way. Look, we are not talking about a particular cultural way of male-female roles, but you can tell when women are denied equal rights or equal opportunities and that is not only unfair to them, it is unhelpful to the whole society.”

Such sentiments from the former Pentagon hawk might sound odd to some in Washington, but they went down well in Hyderabad, where Wolfowitz one day spoke to a hall packed with 300 women from self-help groups across the state of Andhra Pradesh. The groups help women lobby together for health and education, and gain access to micro credit loans. “Who wants to tell me how the self-help group has changed their life?” Wolfowitz asked. All hands in the audience went up. Twenty women started to talk at once, each struggling to speak longest.

There was a lot of laughter and not much translation, but the cheerful mood was killed when the state’s chief minister rose to give a 20-minute speech about his administration’s achievements. The women listened in silence, but perked up when Wolfowitz began to speak again, clapping every time he paused for the translator. The loudest applause came at the end as he told them: “The thing that has impressed me is not just the money you earn but the way it helps you to make your children’s lives better. When I see how well the women are doing here, I think you have to teach the men to walk faster.”

Later, the chief minister asked Praful Patel, the bank’s vice-president for south Asia, why Wolfowitz had received so much more applause than him. Patel said he thought the chief minister had talked at the women, while Wolfowitz had talked to them and asked questions, and that had made a difference.

As the trip drew to a close, I told Wolfowitz he looked as if he had been enjoying himself. “It’s fun to have the chance to be a retail politician again,” he said. We talked of all the things he has done since June, and I said that it must already seem like a long time ago that he was the Bush administration’s deputy defense secretary at the Pentagon. “We’ve been busy,” he said. “I mean, I could slip right back into it, probably. But, yes, it does seem like a long time ago.”

Andrew Balls is chief US economics correspondent."

As the World Bank Turns . . .

2005-09-23T05:11:00.000-07:00

Not Much to See on the 'Silver' Screen: "As the World Bank Turns . . .

It was approaching midnight Friday when folks in the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa department got an e-mail from their boss, Christiaan J. Portman , telling them that their colleague Shaha Riza was being detailed over to the State Department -- as of Monday.

The short notice sparked speculation that her reported relationship with bank President Paul Wolfowitz -- they're said to have been dating for a couple years -- may have contributed to her departure.

Not at all, we are assured by insiders. This was not an abrupt appointment but one that's been in the works for some time. Riza, who was born in Tunisia and educated in Saudi Arabia, is uniquely qualified to help the State Department design and launch a fund to promote democracy in the Middle East. She's also had more than 20 years working on these issues at the National Endowment for Democracy and at the bank.

. . . and Turns

Speaking of the World Bank, word that Wolfowitz is interested in getting some wingtips on the ground in Baghdad -- the bank handles Iraqi programs from Jordan -- is making some folks a bit nervous. "Bankers, as a rule," one wag opined, "prefer to go in after the shooting is over, not in the middle of a war." Well, times change.

"

Kennedy Rips Santorum for 2002 Column - Yahoo! News

2005-07-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

Kennedy Rips Santorum for 2002 Column - Yahoo! News

Dr. Moin Was Never a Serious Candidate

2005-06-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

Notes on Mostafa Moin MD.: "Dr. Moin Was Never a Serious Candidate
Dropped from the Presidential Ballot and then Reinstated.
In a masterful move the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei headed off a diabolical plot to destroy the Presidential elections. Mostafa Moin was not a serious candidate for the Presidency. The plan was to say anything necessary to build a following but also to say things to guarantee that he could never get past the Guardian Council. Dr. Moin toured the country saying things guaranteed to incite the Ayatollah Janati head of the Guardian Council. Once thrown off the ballot Moin and his allies, a coalition of Communists and anti--Islamic agitators, would then challenge the standing of the election and call for a Reformist boycott.

Why would Moin and MIRO and the IIPF want to destroy the elections. First of all they cannot win. If they could win Dr. Moin would not have been saying the provocative comments. Secondly since they could not win they desired to hurt the Islamic Republic of Iran. Moin and his allies do not support the theocracy and wish to see it end so that they can go on to a new system.

By adding Dr. Moin to the Ballot Ayatollah Ali Khamenei headed off the plot to destroy the elections and he put Dr. Moin in a very awkward position. With Moin on the Ballot it draws votes from Mehdie Karrubi the leading Reformist candidate. It is a fair bet that Rafsanjani will be the leading vote getter but he may not draw 50 % which means no win and the top two vote getters go on to a runoff election. With the Reformists divided it will be Rafsanjani #1 and Qalibaf #2. I do not think Karrubi can out poll Qalibaf even if the other two Reformists drop out but if Qalibaf makes a mistake Karrubi might have a chance. But he is boxed in. Moin will not admit that his candidacy was a farce although he would love to get off the ballot right now. The end result will be that Moin is shown to be a "paper tiger" and the Reformist movement is shown to be a powerless and irrelevant part of Iranian politics.

Dr. Moin works closely with Behzad Nabavi a one time Communist and one of the most radical Iranian Reformists. Mr. Nabavi is a close adviser to President Khatami. He was head of the state run oil company PetroPars until he was fired for looting hundreds of millions of dollars. He is a key leader in MIRO, a party with roots in the ultra-violent terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq/MEK. "And then there was an attempt to connect MIRO leader Behzad Nabavi with the 1981 bombing of the Islamic Republican Party headquarters by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, as reported in the 1 September "Aftab-i Yazd" The Mujahedin-e Khalq/MEK has very close ties to Israeli Mossad and US Military Intelligence. It is not know if Behzad Nabavi shares those ties but by his actions it is an open question."

DoD News: Wolfowitz and Rumsfield had in-depth Discussion before Wolfie Took The Job

2005-03-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

DoD News: Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Baltimore Sun - April 26: "Monday, April 26, 2002

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Baltimore Sun - April 26

Q: You mentioned earlier that you could do Rich Armitage's job, he could do your job. There was talk early on at the Bush election that you were going to go to State and Armitage would come here. Can you go back and discuss how you ended up here and --

Wolfowitz: Because Rumsfeld offered me the job. Very simple.

I think there was a lot of talent in that group that could have ended up in all kinds of places.

Q: Can you give us a sense of what he said to you when he said I want you for X reason or I want you to look into this or that or this is what you bring to the table, or this is what I want you to handle --

Wolfowitz: We had a long discussion, which I think --

Q: -- was one of the big --

Wolfowitz: It definitely was. We talked a lot about both what the substance of his job would be and different ways in which a deputy could help him get it done.

Q: Can you shed any light on the particulars of that? Working on the Hill as opposed to --

Wolfowitz: There's a certain inside/outside. Deputies work on the inside and secretaries of Defense work on the outside. The truth of the matter is Rumsfeld works on anything that's interesting. It's probably in some ways -- the only one I've seen up close was Cheney and his Deputy Atwood. There was a pretty distinct division of labor. Atwood did certain things that Cheney didn't pay much attention to, and that is not the way Rumsfeld and I work. It's much more closely intermingled. But he does, he does press conferences, I do them only occasionally.

Q: Does he like to have his fingers in everything pretty much?

Wolfowitz: He's very, he does. He is the energizer bunny that keeps things going.

You've probably heard that one of the, it's not a secret to talk about snowflakes is it? Something I have learned from him, though I can't keep up with him, is the use of the dictaphone. You go into him and you'll give him an idea or ask him a question and before you know it he's picked up the dictaphone. He's talking to it as though he were talking to somebody on the phone and out comes this reasonably clear memo which he will then edit, but sometimes it doesn't even need a lot of editing. I've sort of learned how to do that. But he, the result is a constant flow of memos to his staff, hence the term snowflakes. Do this, do that, have you thought about this. And he moves things constantly. It's a very high level of activity

Q: When he offered you the job, did you have to think twice about it?

Wolfowitz: Not at that point, no. It was very much what I wanted to do.

And I'm happy to say this, too. When I saw him at his confirmation testimony and I saw how good he was, I said I'm really glad I'm your number two. It felt very good to be backing up somebody of that quality, and even more so since September 11th."

SundayMirror.co.uk - CAMILLA BANNED FROM WHITE HOUSE - (Is Wolfie Next?)

2005-03-26T18:40:00.000-08:00

SundayMirror.co.uk - CAMILLA BANNED FROM WHITE HOUSE: "CAMILLA BANNED FROM WHITE HOUSE

Feb 20 2005

Dubya bars Camilla from White House ..because she is a divorcee

By Paul Gilfeather Political Editor

GEORGE Bush has banned Camilla Parker Bowles from the White House - because she is a divorcee.

The unprecedented snub has effectively sabotaged Charles's plan to take his bride on a Royal tour of America later this year.

The trip would have been the pair's first official tour as a married couple.

But the US President - a notoriously right-wing Christian and reformed alcoholic - told aides it was "inappropriate" for him to be playing host to the newly-weds, who are both divorcees.

The decision was made even though the late President Ronald Reagan was divorced.

A Government insider said: "It was relayed to us from Washington that Mrs Parker Bowles would not be welcome at the White House.

"The Americans are aware that the visit will be subject to a lot of media attent ion and did not want the President drawn into what they view to be a public relations exercise.

"It's now uncertain if the visit will even go ahead."

Insiders point out that hosting a lavish Royal dinner for Charles and Camilla would be bad PR for President Bush because while Princess Diana is still much loved by many Americans, her ex-husband is seen and dull and aloof - and bothhe and Camilla are widely blamed for the break-up of his marriage.

The trip, which has been planned for three years, was being portrayed as a "trade mission" and Charles and Camilla were expected to dine with Mr Bush and his wife Laura at the White House.

Mr Bush's shock decision is the latest in a sting of crises to hit the couple. Charles was forced to abandon plans for a Windsor Castle wedding on April 8 after he discovered the Royal Family would have to let other couples get married there too.

The blunder saw the couple hastily switch the venue to the register office at Windsor Guildhall, sending the Queen into a rage. She summoned Charles to Buckingham Palace and torpedoed his plans for a swanky reception at Windsor Castle.

Charles's trip to the US would have been his first State visit to America since Princess Diana's death seven years ago.

The prince wants to win acceptance for Camilla and believed the US public might have taken her to their hearts if the visit was planned properly. The source said: "The potential fall-out from this decision could be massive.""

the Mail online | Sex Charged Scandals Slam Wolfie's Chance For World Bank

2005-03-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | Will a British divorcee cost 'Wolfie' his job?: "Will a British divorcee cost 'Wolfie' his job?
From SHARON CHURCHER and ANNETTE WITHERIDGE, Mail on Sunday

12:08pm 20th March 2005

Nomination: Paul Wolfowitz was a controversial choice for the World Bank
The appointment of George Bush's leading hawk as head of the World Bank was heading for a crisis over his relationship with a senior British employee.
Influential members of staff at the international organisation have complained to its board that Paul Wolfowitz, a married father of three, is so besotted with Oxford-educated Shaha Riza he cannot be impartial.

Extraordinarily, they claim she played a key role in pushing the 61-year-old Pentagon official into the Iraq War. And the row comes amid claims that Wolfowitz's wife Clare once warned George Bush of the threat to national security any infidelity by her husband could cause.

A British citizen - at 51, eight years younger than Wolfowitz's wife - Ms Riza grew up in Saudi Arabia and was passionately committed to democratising the Middle East when she allegedly began to date Wolfowitz.
She studied at the London School of Economics in the Seventies before taking a master's degree at St Anthony's College, Oxford, where she met her future husband, Turkish Cypriot Bulent Ali Riza, from whom she is now divorced.

After they moved to America, Shaha worked for the Iraq Foundation, set up by expatriates to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. She subsequently joined the National Endowment for Democracy, created by President Ronald Reagan to promote American ideals.

Bulent Riza said Shaha started to "talk to Paul" about reforming the Middle East. And New Yorker magazine's respected commentator Paul Boyer observed that a senior World Bank official "named Shaha Ali Riza" was an "influence".

Downing Street 'furious' at nomination

Wolfowitz became known around the world as one of the fiercest proponents of invasion of Iraq. The Mail on Sunday has learned that Downing Street is "furious" about his nomination, fearing his hardline attitude could alienate large sections of the international community.

But it is his tangled private life that could stop him taking up the World Bank post.

Critics say it would be impossible for Wolfie - as he is nicknamed by Bush - to make independent decisions when his lover, who works on Middle Eastern and North African issues, is so committed to overthrowing Middle Eastern regimes.

"His womanising has come home to roost," a Washington insider said. "Paul was a foreign policy hawk long before he met Shaha but it doesn't look good to be accused of being under the thumb of your mistress."

One of his opponents at the bank said: "Unless Riza gives up her job, this will be an impossible conflict of interest."

National security risk

Wolfowitz married Clare Selgin in 1968. But they have lived separately since 2001, after allegations of an affair with an employee at the School of Advanced International Studies where he was dean for seven years.

According to one Republican Administration insider, Clare was so upset by rumours about the affair that she wrote to then President Elect Bush, saying if the story were true it could pose a national security risk.

Yesterday, she refused to comment on whether her husband had been unfaithful before their separation, saying: "I really do not want to share this with you."

She also refused to confirm her marital status - reports of his appointment repeatedly describe Wolfowitz as divorced but The Mail on Sunday has been unable to find any records. Asked if she is separated or divorced, Clare replied: "That's my business."

On the claim that she wrote a letter to Bush, she said: "That's very interesting but not something I can tell you about."

A friend of Wolfowitz insisted last night that he had not been unfaithful: "Paul and Clare have been separated since 2001. It is my understanding they are now legally separated."

By tradition, the United States picks the bank's president, but the decision must be approved by its board. The US has a 16 per cent vote, but Europe collectively has about 30 per cent.

The bank's staff association has told executives it has been swamped with complaints from employees about Wolfowitz.

However, Wolfowitz's only comment on the complaints has been a terse statement issued through a Pentagon spokesman. He said: "If a personal relationship presents a potential conflict of interest, I will comply with bank policies to resolve the issue.""

Wolfowitz Sleazy Womanizer - Home Wrecker and Cheat

2005-03-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

Wolfowitz Dating Muslim Woman Causes Stir: "Wolfowitz Dating Muslim Woman Causes Stir
Arab News ^ | 3/23/2005 | Barbara Ferguson

Posted on 03/22/2005 6:42:59 PM PST by wjersey

Here’s a bit of news that had Washingtonians choking on their coffee this morning: President Bush’s neoconservative hawk Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon’s architect of the US invasion of Iraq, is dating a Muslim!

While battle lines have hardened over President Bush’s nomination of Wolfowitz to become president of the World Bank, what many say is really fueling the controversy is concern within the bank over Wolfowitz’s reported romantic relationship with Shaha Ali Riza, an Arab feminist who is the acting manager for External Relations and Outreach for the Middle East and North Africa Region at the World Bank.

Political foes of Wolfowitz portray him as a leader of Washington’s Jewish neo-conservatives driving a blindly pro-Israel policy in the Middle East. Critics have also noted that his sister, Laura, a biologist, lives in Israel and has an Israeli husband.

But Wolfowitz, a married father of three, is said to be so blinded by his relationship with Riza, that influential members of the World Bank believe she played a key role in influencing the Pentagon official to launch the 2003 Iraq war. As his trusted confident, she is said to be one of most influential Muslims in Washington.

What they are said to share is a passion to establish democracy in the Middle East.

Riza, in her mid-fifties, was born in Tunis and grew up in Saudi Arabia. Her childhood is said to have done much to shape her commitment to democracy, equal rights and civil liberties in the Arab world based on her first hand experiences.

She brought those beliefs with her when she joined the World Bank in 1997.

Riza studied at the London School of Economics in the 1970s before taking a master’s degree at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, where she met her former husband, Turkish Cypriot Bulent Ali Riza, from whom she is now divorced.

After they moved to America, Riza worked for the Iraq Foundation, set up by expatriates to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. She subsequently joined the National Endowment for Democracy, created by President Ronald Reagan to promote American ideals.

It was this time that Riza, a British citizen eight years younger than Wolfowitz’s wife — started to meet with Wolfowitz about reforming the Middle East. They allegedly began dating two years ago.

Even by the discreet standards of Washington’s powerful inner circle, their relationship is a remarkably closely guarded secret. The Washington Post says the couple rarely goes out together or demonstrates affection publicly, according to friends who are aware of the relationship. They attend low-key Washington social events and visit friends’ homes together and Riza also sometimes goes to official functions and dinners with him, but is not identified as his partner, an acquaintance said.

“His womanizing has come home to roost,” a Washington insider told reporters. “Paul was a foreign policy hawk long before he met Riza but it doesn’t look good to be accused of being under the thumb of your mistress.”

A Wolfowitz opponent at the World Bank told a reporter: “Unless Riza gives up her job, this will be an impossible conflict of interest.”

Wolfowitz married his wife Clare Selgin in 1968. But they have lived separately since 2001, after allegations he had an affair with an employee at the School of Advanced International Studies where he was dean for seven years. They are now believed to be legally separated.

The World Bank’s staff association has told executives it has been swamped with complaints from employees about Wolfowitz.

However, Wolfowitz’s only comment on the complaints has been a terse statement issued through a Pentagon spokesman. He said: “If a personal relationship presents a potential conflict of interest, I will comply with bank policies to resolve the issue.”"

Wolfowitz took Money From Dreyfus Funds

2004-12-09T06:08:00.000-08:00

Wolfowitz Connection: "The Dreyfus Funds Support Hawks Too
By Max Rottersman

Dreyfus Funds Has Lions and Hawks. While Paul D. Wolfowitz was working on his “pre-emptive strike” position paper he was being paid by Dreyfus to sit on their board of directors for various mutual funds. In 1994 his compensation was $32,631 but by 2000 it was $47,000 a year. Today he is Secretary of Defense and that position paper, penned while he was a trustee, serves as the blueprint for the Iraq war (and you thought mutual fund trustees just play bridge and golf).

In 1997 Wolfowitz became a founding member of The Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Wolfowitz resigned as a trustee of the Dreyfus Funds on March 1st, 2000. Half a year later PNAC released a paper arguing for a stronger course of action against Iraq.

Interestingly, PNAC was led by William Kristol who was paid $38,750 a year by Sanford Bernstein to watch over their funds.

When it comes to foreign policy it’s likely many trustees on the Dreyfus board had Wolfowitz’ interests. Arthur Hartman was a United States Ambassador to the former Soviet Union. Lucy Wilson Benson was Vice Chairman of the Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs. At Seligman, Trustee John Merow was Director of the Foreign Policy Association.

One has to wonder what political or ideological conversations go on in the fund board rooms of America. If the heat is turned up on directors to do a better job on shareholder fees, the question may come to the fore: how much time are they spending on their funds and how much on political agendas?

Will Dreyfus shareholder one day add or subtract to their holdings because of Wolfowitz’ argument for an Iraq invasion. Time will tell. It could go either way."

Wolfowitz has been subjected to a "healthy dose of reality"

2004-12-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

t r u t h o u t - Neocons Join the Lynch Mob for 'Arrogant' Rumsfeld: "Neocons Join the Lynch Mob for 'Arrogant' Rumsfeld
By Sarah Baxter
The Times U.K.

Tuesday 30 November 2004
The American defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, should be sacked, according to a growing chorus of conservative commentators who want him replaced by a figure with wider appeal.

In a seemingly innocuous Thanksgiving message to readers last week, William Kristol, the neoconservative editor of The Weekly Standard magazine, slipped in a surprise demand for Rumsfeld's dismissal.

"What remains to be done is to announce new leadership for the department of defense," wrote Kristol. "This, surely, would be an important opportunity for a strong, Bush-doctrine-supporting outsider, someone who of course would be a team player, but someone who could also work with the military and broaden support for the president's policy."

Boiled down, this meant: almost anybody but Rumsfeld, whose performance has not always matched his swagger. His failure to install enough troops on the ground after last year's invasion of Iraq has upset American generals and alienated supporters of the war.

"I am allergic to Rumsfeld," said Ralph Peters, a former lieutenant-colonel and robust media champion of the war on terror. "We did a great thing in Iraq, but we did it very badly.

"He is an extremely talented man but he has the tragic flaw of hubris. His arrogance is unbearable. My friends in uniform just hate him."

The calls for Rumsfeld to be dismissed have intensified since the departure was announced of his cabinet rival, Colin Powell, the secretary of state. With the liberal-leaning Powell being the first to go, conservatives no longer see the need to hold back their opinions.

The defence secretary's job security has not been enhanced by allegations that he lobbied to scupper the intelligence bill in Congress last week against President George W Bush's wishes. Rumsfeld made little secret of his opposition to the bill's plan for the national intelligence director to be given sweeping powers over the $40 billion intelligence budget, 80% of which is currently controlled by the Pentagon.

Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, who first worked with Rumsfeld in the 1970s, are known to feel loyal to the architect of the swift military victories in Afghanistan and - initially - in Iraq. There is a feeling that he deserves to remain in place until after the Iraqi elections in January.

Unlike Powell, Rumsfeld lacks an obvious replacement. Robert Novak, the right-wing pundit, believes Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservative deputy defense secretary, is a "good possibility" who has been subjected to a "healthy dose of reality" about the limits of American power."

FrontPage magazine.com :: Interview: Paul Wolfowitz by Radek Sikorski

2004-11-24T04:43:00.000-08:00

FrontPage magazine.com :: Interview: Paul Wolfowitz by Radek Sikorski: "Interview: Paul Wolfowitz
By Radek Sikorski
Prospect Magazine | November 23, 2004

If a hawk is someone who knows his mind and speaks it clearly, then Paul Wolfowitz, aged 60, is a hawk. But in other respects he fails to conform to the European idea of an American conservative. He has spent most of his career as a forceful promoter of democracy and humanitarian intervention. He sided with the captive nations of the Soviet empire before it was fashionable. Then in Reagan's state department he pushed the autocrats in Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea towards reform. As the number three in the Pentagon in the HW Bush administration, he helped assemble the coalition that expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. A former ambassador to Indonesia and dean of Johns Hopkins University, Wolfowitz is a tough-minded intellectual, with an academic background in international relations, who is now close to the driving seat in Washington. We met in the depths of the Pentagon on 3rd November, just after polls had closed. As I readied my tape machine and Wolfowitz chomped a salad, an adjutant came in to tell us John Kerry had conceded. The rumour-mill tips Wolfowitz as George W Bush's next national security adviser.

Radek Sikorski - Do you feel that with George Bush's re-election your policies have been vindicated?

Paul Wolfowitz - I think the good sense of the American voter has been vindicated. Americans understand a war is going on and they clearly prefer George Bush as a leader in that war. One of the polling figures that held up dramatically in the president's favour by, I think, a two to one margin, was that he is a stronger leader. The other one was that you could believe what he says and that he believes what he says. This, by the way, was the quality that made Reagan so successful. Americans like to know where their leaders stand, they don't like leaders who make decisions based on polls. It's almost a paradox of democracy. But, in any case, you can't measure success or failure until you're finished, and we're in the middle of a war. Would you feel vindicated by the Normandy landings?

RS - Now that the election is over are you going to take the gloves off?

PW - If you're talking about Falluja, it's been clear for some time that April's experiment [US military commanders loosened their siege of the city, turning over the task of ending the insurgency to a new force of Iraqi soldiers] was not going to succeed. But you should know that the president was incredibly scrupulous about keeping political considerations out of national security decisions. I'm not a politician, but I would guess that it would have helped the president in the polls if we had gone on to the offence in Falluja last month. The main issue is that the Iraqi government should be on board and I think you can see that Prime Minister Allawi's patience is running out.

RS - You recently went to Warsaw where your family came from [Wolfowitz was born in New York; his father, a mathematician, was from Warsaw but emigrated during Poland's brief interwar independence]. You went to the Umschlagplatz, from where the German Nazis transported Jews to Treblinka for gassing, including perhaps members of your own family. How did that affect you?

PW - Less dramatically than people like to say. While the Holocaust is unique in the way the Germans performed it, in an industrial fashion, there have been other genocides. I was actually more affected in a positive way at seeing the transformation in the city from what it must have been - not only during the war but through the years of communism. And it was just an unmitigated pleasure to sit in this lovely Warsaw apartment on a beautiful fall day with the sun coming through the window and talk to Jan Nowak, who is the hero who brought news of the Holocaust to Britain and America. And to think that neither of us would have dreamed as recently as 20 years ago that he would ever live in a free Warsaw.

RS - Do you think the Holocaust still colours America's attitude to the middle east and Israel?

PW - What Saddam did in Iraq was certainly genocide - not as systematic as Hitler's, not as fundamentally racist as Hitler's, but absolutely horrible. And for various reasons, the world looked the other way. Jan Nowak made an observation about this: when he went back later to the archives and saw the notes of his conversations in London and Washington in the early 1940s, the subject of the extermination of Jews wasn't mentioned, even though he had emphasised it. I said, "What do you attribute it to?" He replied, "wartime inconvenience." It was an uncomfortable fact and people didn't want to know, just as they didn't want to know about Srebrenica. When the memorial at Srebrenica was dedicated, some said "if only we had known." Well, the world knew. The world knew for three years and still the Bosnians were not armed and the conflict was not dealt with.
I remember arguing with people who were in favour of the arms embargo on Bosnia in 1992, saying, look, I think it's immoral, but put that issue aside. If we insist that the Bosnians can't defend themselves then sooner or later we'll be going in to protect them. This is what happened. Afghanistan is a huge success because we empowered the Afghans. And it seems to me that it's a good strategic principle to help people to defend themselves. One of the most powerful images that stuck with me in Iraq was when a colonel in the 101st airborne division explained to his troops that what they were doing was like what his father, or their grandfathers, did in Japan and Germany: they're not just defeating evil in terrorism and Ba'athism, they're creating new allies. And one of these days I think Afghanistan and Iraq will be big contributors to the progress in the middle east that we desperately need.

RS - As you say, the US has had its biggest recent successes when it has empowered its friends to do what they want to do anyway. Why didn't you do that in Iraq? Why couldn't we have had Iraqis liberating Baghdad, winning credibility from defeating Saddam and then becoming the new Iraqi government? Why did we have to have US soldiers to do it for them?

PW - Why was it necessary to have such a large US role? This is a point that is totally misunderstood and almost never explained. It allows people to say that I have held the same view on Iraq for the last 10 years. In fact, before 11th September, those of us who said that it was important to end the hypocrisy of saying "we want the liberation of Iraq but we won't do anything about it" were never advocates of invading Baghdad. There were some who said we shouldn't use US ground forces at all. I was a little more willing to say it might take US ground forces to create a sanctuary in northern or southern Iraq. We could have done it in Basra, which is the second largest city in the country and which did welcome us with open arms once the Fedayeen were cleared out. But 11th September and the anthrax attacks which came immediately after changed the calculation. Rather than leave Saddam alone forever to get more dangerous, you had to take him on and take him on quickly.

RS - You were one of the people who got it right about the cold war. But are we not in danger of drawing the wrong lesson? The people of central Europe liberated themselves with western help because they wanted democracy. But in places like Cuba, where the desire for democracy clashes with an even more powerful force, nationalism, we have not won. Democracy can win in those places which do not have a nationalist grievance against the US. If this is right - how does it apply to the middle east?

PW - I'm not sure I agree with the proposition. Philippine nationalism, for example, is somewhat anti-American and it hasn't prevented them from embracing democracy. Korean nationalism is very, very powerful. But our relationship with Korea is far better today because we supported their democratic transition 20 years ago and we're not burdened with helping to keep a tyranny in power. Arab nationalism everywhere has an anti- American slant. But Arab democrats are excited about what this president has done.

RS - But the US supports undemocratic governments in Egypt and elsewhere. So how much is the project of exporting democracy to the Arab world a real one and how much part of a propaganda war to help justify Iraq?

PW - Export of democracy isn't really a good phrase. We're trying to remove the shackles on democracy. What you would hope is that governments can be encouraged on a path of gradual reform because that's the best way to avoid the sort of cataclysm that will come otherwise. It is also much tougher where you've got a home-grown tyranny than where you had one that was basically the product of occupation, like Poland, because society gets to be more thoroughly corrupted. In this sense Iraq is more like Serbia.

RS - Britain, Italy, Poland and Ukraine supported you in Iraq with troops, but their publics are sceptical.

PW - Some of the hostility among European publics comes from basic, deep-seated factual misrepresentations. Left-wing academics say that this is a war for oil or for Halliburton or other absurdities. Political leaders could take on some of this falsehood and demagoguery. If the US president talked as regularly and as critically about Europe as some European leaders talk about the US, there would probably be a lot more anti-European feeling in this country than there is. And I am surprised that given the American sacrifice in Europe, 50, 60 years ago, more Europeans don't think that the Iraqi people or the Afghan people are entitled to a similar consideration. It's astonishing to hear liberals and socialists, whether in Europe or here, effectively saying that Saddam's fascist, genocidal dictatorship should have been left alone.

RS - The US would have won more support in Europe if it had justified war on humanitarian grounds - Europe accepted war against Serbia on that basis.

PW - But we would never have had 15 votes in the UN on that proposition. The UN was what forced us down the WMD path, which was a legitimate argument. When the president first went to the UN, he made three arguments. He talked about terrorism, he talked about WMD and he talked about abuse of the Iraqi people. Even with the UN resolution, we might have pushed harder on this issue. On the other hand, the Syrians weren't going to vote for a resolution that endorsed removing Saddam for the sake of the Iraqis.

RS - The leader of the British Tories, the pro-Atlanticist Michael Howard, was cold shouldered by the White House because he dared to criticise Tony Blair's presentation on Iraq. So if you want to be received at the White House, do you have to show obedience these days?

PW - If we expected obedience we wouldn't have any relations with Europe at all. It's usually our practice to meet with politicians from across the spectrum.
Look, we've been through 50 years now of the most successful alliance in history. It's had its downs. We're in the middle of a war which hasn't been won yet and it's tough and nobody likes a war. I can understand people being anti-war, even if they know all the facts. But I still believe that freedom is a powerful force that will help sort this out. It's also a glue that holds us together. Who would have dreamed ten years ago that a Nato force would be keeping the peace in Kabul, so that Afghanistan could build a democracy? There's a lot that's creative and good.

RS - Conservatives are suspicious of projects to change human nature. They oppose social engineering in domestic policy. Yet here you are, full of ideological zeal, crafting a new form of government for people very different from us. Is this a contradiction?

PW - If you put it that way, you create a contradiction. We're not trying to graft our system of government on to people who are different from us. We're trying to remove shackles that keep them from having what they want. And it's astonishing how many of them want something that's similar to what we in the west have. I was assistant secretary of state for east Asia when we first confronted Marcos under the Reagan administration. People said: "What are you doing? We'll end up with what Carter got in Iran." But we pressed Marcos very hard in the Philippines and I think the proof is in the outcome. The contradiction is to say that allowing people to choose their government freely is to impose our ideas on them. There was a wonderful moment at a conference here in Washington where someone said it's arrogant of us to impose our values on the Arab world, and an Arab got up and said it's arrogant of you to say these are your values because they are universal values.

RS - On the eve of the Iraq war, I asked one of your colleagues whether it was worth gaining Iraq and losing Europe. He answered that when we win, European foreign ministry spokesmen will be falling over themselves to prove that they were with us all along. But this has not happened. Europe is not reconciled. Aren't you worried that France is winning the argument over Iraq politically?

PW - It's much too soon to tell what the effect of winning the war on Iraq will be, because it's still going on. And you can't make a decision about something as important as what to do about Iraq based on a public opinion poll. Eventually, opinion will follow the facts.

RS - But the Iraq war has created a European public opinion for the first time, which is anti-American, even in countries that joined the war.

PW - I believe that we have many fundamental common interests with Europe based in no small measure on common values. And that in the medium to long run, that's what will prevail. The agenda of reform in the Arab world that the president is promoting is going to benefit Europe more than the US. If we can find a way to produce the two-state solution that the president wants for Israel and Palestine, that's going to transform our relations. But if you want to make the kinds of changes that I think are necessary, you're not going to get them done if you are too deferential to the lowest common denominator. For example, a lot of bad things happened in the Balkans because, on both sides of the Atlantic, people were unwilling to make tough decisions for a number of years. And then when they finally did and it's a success - well, who now remembers that Europeans thought Americans in the Clinton administration were overbearing?

RS - With the benefit of hindsight and now that the election campaign is over, what would you say could have been done differently in Iraq?

PW - People make a lot about the decision to dismiss the Iraqi army. But I don't think people are shooting at Americans and blowing up schools because we dismissed the Iraqi army. When people talk about why Iraq is as difficult as it is, they always start and finish with a list of American mistakes. Nobody ever talks about the enemy. It would be like saying why the battle of the bulge was tough without ever mentioning the German army. Saddam Hussein didn't stop fighting us, at least until he was captured in December last year. Al-Zarqawi didn't surrender when Baghdad fell. He stepped up his efforts. There are all these organisations that are unheard of in Europe and barely known in the US that people ought to know about. There was the M-14 division of the Iraqi intelligence service, its so-called "anti-terrorism" division, which specialised in hijackings and bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. There was the M-16 division, which perfected new bombing techniques. Many of these guys are out in Falluja and Ramadi in the western parts of Iraq today making bombs. A fellow named Abu Ibrahim spent 20 years in Iraq developing these techniques. He can fashion plastic explosives in the shape of decorative wall hangings. He was putting bombs in suitcases on American airplanes in 1982. If you don't understand that the people who killed and raped and murdered and tortured for 35 years are not quitting and still think they can win, then you won't understand what we're fighting.

RS - In January I was in Iraq and was surprised to find electricity is free. No wonder there are shortages.

PW - Yeah. There's more electricity now than there was before the war. Electricity shortages matter partly because it makes people unhappy but also because it makes them suspicious of us. They say, "If you can put a man on the moon, why can't you fix our electricity or clean up the slums?" If you proceed from that false premise, then you arrive at a false conclusion, which is that Americans must be here for some ulterior motive. And then if some former Ba'athist comes by and says, "Boy, those are nice children you have, I sure hope you're thinking about their future," it's intimidating. The main thing the enemy can do in Iraq is to intimidate and we cannot compete and wouldn't want to compete in that. But in order for Iraqis to fight, they need to have a lot of confidence in us, that we're not going to cut and run. And if electricity doesn't work, it undercuts that faith. I think that one of the benefits of President Bush's re-election is that both good Iraqis and bad Iraqis will begin to think that the game is up for the bad guys. But nothing can be taken for granted. Any gain you make lasts only two or three months, unless you build on it.

RS - The war on terror is a war on the radical Muslim insurgency, in which you have to kill the irreconcilables, but which will be decided in the hearts and minds of the majority of moderate Muslims. What did you learn about this as ambassador to Indonesia?

PW - Indonesia is wonderful. A country of more than 220m people - with the largest Muslim population of any country in the world - and it does give you a view of a certain slice of this problem. It's a somewhat atypical slice because it's not an Arab country and it has a strong tradition of religious tolerance. I would say that over 90 per cent of Indonesians reject the extremists. Even people who want to make Indonesia a Muslim state don't support terrorism. But in a country of 220m people, even if just one ten-thousandth of the population were terrorists, you would have 22,000 terrorists. In fact, there are probably far, far fewer. And yet, they can do enormous damage, as we saw with the explosion in Bali. Part of the challenge in a country like Indonesia is to create conditions where mainstream Muslims are comfortable denouncing the terrorists. This is one of the reasons President Bush has been so careful not to offend Islam and to stress the Muslim nature of our allies. There's a close analogy with the early cold war when some people said that the enemy was socialism. I think the people who won the cold war were the ones who recognised that the greatest allies in the fight against communism were democratic socialists and trade unionists.

RS - Was it wise to brush Nato aside when it sprang to the US's defence after 9/11?

PW - That's a myth. I was at that meeting and the reporting about our brushing Nato aside is just wrong. I think some of it came from a feeling that we ought to have had a detailed set of requests for Nato. We weren't asking Nato to do more because we hadn't figured out yet what we needed. But we were delighted having Nato's AWACs defending US air space. We were delighted at the invocation of Article 5. We supported Lord Robertson and everything he was trying to do. And it's hardly brushing Nato aside to have all these Nato countries helping to secure Afghanistan today. On the other hand, it turned out that when we did ask people to do things, just in Afghanistan, most countries strained to do it. Some people are doing a lot, especially new Nato members.

RS - Is it still in America's interest to support European integration or should the US work to disaggregate Europe into its constituent states?

PW - I would put much more emphasis on how we relate to Europe than whether we're going to affect its evolution. But having said that, there are European countries that are prepared to work more closely with us than others. And I don't think that we should necessarily go with the lowest common denominator in Europe. To pick an example that is ten years behind us, I think it was President Chirac who tried to get the US to do more on Bosnia and we responded positively to him in the end.

RS - How does Chechnya fit into the war on terror?

PW - The Chechens have legitimate political concerns. But the fact that some of them pursue those ends by means of terrorism puts any country that's serious about opposing terrorism in a very difficult position. And you have to be absolutely clear in denouncing atrocities like what took place in Beslan. But I think it is not condoning terrorism to support a political solution to the Chechen conflict.

RS - What would be your desired model of co-operation with Europe over Iran? Can Europe be the good cop and America the bad cop?

PW - The hammer, like in Korea, is not military, but economic. What our Asian partners can do to bring North Korea around economically is vastly more than what we can do. The Iranian equation is more complex and the country is open to political influence in a way that North Korea is not. Europeans have economic leverage on Iran they could exercise.

RS - Would the US also use carrots, for example, by recognising the mullahs? If the policy is regime change, then you can hardly blame them for trying to insulate themselves by acquiring nuclear weapons.

PW - The policy is that Iran should stop promoting terrorism, should stop pursuing WMD and should stop trying to destroy the middle east peace process.

RS - And if those conditions are met will you then restore relations?

PW - One positive thing about Iran is that there's more room for political evolution in that country than in most comparable dictatorships. The trouble is that a few years ago they had an election in which three-quarters of the population voted for the opposition candidate, but it turned out that winning the election didn't change the government. It is possible to conceive of Iran going in the direction where they have a government that respects the rights of its people and truly represents them.

RS - Imagine you were a reasonable foreigner and you saw that US intelligence had failed to prevent 9/11, failed to capture Osama and failed to get it right about WMD in Iraq, would you trust US assessments about Iran or North Korea?

PW - Part of the problem is that people both here and in Europe tend to confuse spectacular technical intelligence with intelligence overall. Just because we can read licence plates from outer space, they think we must know what goes on in North Korea or Iraq. Every intelligence service in the world, including the leading European intelligence services, seem to have got it wrong about Saddam's WMD. In fact, a lot of our information came from European sources. Intelligence is by nature an uncertain business. You're having to make a lot of decisions under huge uncertainties. That is the nature of this fight against terrorism. If you read the 9/11 commission report, the most powerful impression is that even two or three years afterwards, even with the benefit of having captured the mastermind [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and having extensive interrogations, there are still large areas about it that we don't understand. So, to expect to get perfect insight into the terrorist networks is an unreasonable expectation. You want your intelligence to help as much as it can. But we have to create a world in which these terrorist networks don't enjoy sanctuaries.

RS - The US president used to be seen as the leader of the free world rather than just president of one country and America used to be seen as a benign global empire. Now, after 9/11, understandably, this is a more patriotic, perhaps even a more nationalistic country. But won't the price of running a nationalistic American empire be much higher than managing a co-operative one? The first Gulf war, for example, paid for itself, whereas the Iraq war is expensive.

PW The premise of your question is that we're out to run an empire, but there is no American empire. Look at Japan and Korea. They were part of this so-called empire in the cold war. After the second world war and the Korean war, we invested heavily in the defence and economic systems of countries like Japan and Korea - hardly an imperial undertaking. I would submit that we have benefited enormously from their strength and their ability to stand on their own feet. They're now contributing to the rest of the world.

We're so much better off with a Japan as a strong trading partner than a Japan as a basket case. If people want to redefine the word "empire" to mean this as an empire, then it's just semantics. We are not trying to control these countries so we can exploit their resources. We're trying to enable these countries to stand on their own feet and our experience says that when they do so, we're better off. It's back to the absurdity of saying we're trying to impose our ideas on other people when we want to help them become democracies. There's more legitimacy to the question of whether we are really prepared to live with what they produce when they become democratic.

There's an uncertainty about the democratic process and there's always a danger that bad people will get elected. But it's a funny empire that relies on releasing basic human desires to be free and prosperous and live in peace. One of the things about this moment in history is that nobody really thinks they can produce an army, a navy or an air force that can take on the US. That should channel human competitiveness into more productive and peaceful pursuits.

RS - How do you want to crown your political career?

PW - It's very important to win this war in Iraq and then win the peace that has to follow. We must make progress on the president's broad middle east initiative. We need to solidify the huge gains in Afghanistan because we're engaged, not by our choice, but by the choice of the extremists, in a struggle that will go on for decades. I just hope that when my children go through my papers someday, they will say, well, he helped to get us on the right course.

Radek Sikorski, formerly Poland's deputy minister of defence and deputy minister of foreign affairs, is director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute."