Steven R. Weisman
The Bush administration, shifting strategy in the face of mounting opposition to Paul D. Wolfowitz as World Bank president, opened the door Tuesday to the possibility of his voluntary resignation if the bank board ended its drive to declare him unfit to remain in office.
But the administration’s new approach — outlined in a telephone conference call between the Treasury Department in Washington and economic ministries in Japan, Canada and Europe — appeared to gain few immediate supporters, various officials said.
Indeed, bank officials said the board seemed determined on Tuesday evening to endorse the findings of a special committee that Wolfowitz broke bank rules, ethics and governance standards in arranging for, and concealing, a pay and promotion package for his companion, Shaha Ali Riza, in 2005.
The officials said the 52-page report of the committee, released Monday evening, had emboldened Wolfowitz’s critics on the board and made it difficult for the board to avoid concluding that he could no longer lead the institution.
Late in the day on Tuesday, Wolfowitz made a personal and impassioned appeal to the bank board at a private meeting, seeking to stave off what some said was an inevitable rebuke.
According to a text made available by a supporter, he warned that a vote of no confidence in his leadership, tantamount to requesting his ouster, “has the potential to do greater long-term damage to the institution” than any conflict of interest he may have failed to avoid.
Declaring that he had been “held up to public ridicule” and “caricatured as a ‘boyfriend’ who used his position of power to help his ‘girlfriend,”‘ Wolfowitz said that “for the sake of the bank, and for your sake, this process has to be fair.”
He promised to change his management approach by relying less on advisers from the Bush administration, restructuring his office, delegating more to career managers and placing “more trust in the staff,” according to the text.
“I implore each of you to be fair in making your decision, because your decision will not only affect my life, it will affect how this institution is viewed in the United States and the world,” he said. This was an apparent reference to criticism of the bank among American conservatives and fears of Congress cutting off financing for the bank.
