Crank Up the Rumor Mill: If Wolfowitz Leaves . . .
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By Al Kamen
Friday, April 20, 2007

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz says he's not resigning -- and there is no official bank process to force him out -- but the speculation has begun on who might be a suitable successor.

Assuming the administration -- the head of the bank is nominated by the president of the United States -- does pull the plug on him, the most obvious places to look would be to the banking community or to people who have run big institutions and might be available.

One obvious choice would be Robert Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state and U.S. trade representative, who was thought to be getting the job in 2005 until Wolfowitz slipped in. Unfortunately, Zoellick recently moved to Wall Street and is now making huge bucks.

Another solid candidate, though not an American, would be Kemal Dervis, head of the U.N. Development Program. There are surely many other banking, Treasury or even Hill types (remember Barber Conable, the late Upstate New York congressman and World Bank president?) who fit the bill. But in this time of crisis, it might be worth thinking beyond the usual suspects. So let's see . . .

Perhaps one of the Larrys? Larry Small, who used to be head of the Smithsonian until he was pushed out over his lavish expenditures, or Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary bounced recently as president of Harvard after clashes with faculty and some remarks about women, might be available.

There's Attorney General Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales, though he lacks banking experience and other requisites. After yesterday's dreadful appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he might be looking for work -- and the bank job doesn't require Senate confirmation.

But what they truly need is an articulate, persuasive, intelligent leader, someone with many years of international banking experience -- maybe who's even run a bank; someone with substantial managerial experience and extraordinary political agility; someone who's been very close to the Bush administration and the neocon crowd of which Wolfowitz is a charter member and who could bring a multicultural perspective to the organization.

Who would that be? Yes, of course, Ahmed Chalabi, the former deputy prime minister of Iraq! Sure, Chalabi had that little bad patch in Jordan, where he was convicted of embezzlement and fraud, but that's old news, happened long before he sat, beaming, behind first lady Laura Bush at the 2004 State of the Union address. And those recent agent-of-Iran allegations are all unproven.

The bank's executive board of directors started meeting yesterday afternoon on the Wolfowitz question and other matters, and the session could go well into the night and into today.

There's buzz that Wolfowitz thinks the storm has passed and it's time to look forward. He is reported to have said that at a bank managers meeting Wednesday, prompting his own deputy, Graeme Wheeler, a widely respected former New Zealand treasury official and a bank veteran, to tell him to resign.

And despite Wolfowitz's insistence that he's staying -- and the rote White House assertions each day that they're 1,000 percent behind him -- support appears to be eroding even among the base.

The conservative Washington Times, in a rapier-like editorial Tuesday, said Wolfowitz "should apologize once more . . . and step down." Ordering promotions and pay raises for his girlfriend, the newspaper said, was "clearly unethical" and particularly "unacceptable" given his anti-corruption crusade. "The only honorable choice is to resign."

Yikes!

Wrong Weapon, Wrong Soldier?

The ad Monday in this and many newspapers for a PBS documentary film called "Operation Homecoming" was striking. The photograph showed a lone silhouetted soldier carrying a rifle.

But upon inspection, he's clearly not carrying an M16. The soldier is carrying a Russian AK-47. He may be going home, but it's nowhere near Nashville or Buffalo. So what happened?

Boeing, which underwrote the National Endowment for the Arts homecoming project -- teaching writing to soldiers and families so they could record their experiences in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- is said to be none too happy about the ad.

Not us, said Boeing spokesman Dan Beck: "The ad was developed by the Documentary Group," which did the film. Apparently, they "were assured it was an American soldier," he said, adding that U.S. troops are allowed in certain circumstances to carry an AK-47 or other non-U.S. weapon. "It was an image they had obtained from a military photographer."

"It could turn out to be that that is an Iraqi soldier," said Richard Robbins, who directed the film. "We are trying to get to the bottom of it." But Robbins said Jacob Bailey, the award-winning Air Force photographer who took the picture, "thinks it probably was an Iraqi soldier, as do we."

Of course, Boeing "would rather have had a U.S. soldier," he said. "But the guy's on our side, he's not an enemy soldier. If it's a mistake, it's my mistake, although theoretically somebody at Boeing should have caught it." But "things are moving very fast" when these things are all being put together, he said.

In any event, "the film is about the experience of American soldiers," Robbins said. "They've seen this image, so it's relatively in keeping with what they do."

Waiting for Godot Was Easier

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, wasn't pleased to find that the Department of Education waited until this week to provide data -- first reported yesterday in The Washington Post -- that showed a $1-billion-a-year reading program is helping kids. Miller shot off an angry letter to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings saying that his office, probing cronyism and mismanagement in the Reading First program, had asked for the info two months ago but never got it.

The department tells our colleague Amit R. Paley that it doesn't know what Miller is talking about and has complied with his requests. Stay tuned.