Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's appointee to the presidency of the World Bank, stands accused of using his position to get big raises and cushy jobs for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a fellow Bank employee.

Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's appointee to the presidency of the World Bank, stands accused of using his position to get big raises and cushy jobs for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a fellow Bank employee. The Bank bureaucracy is united against Wolfowitz, as are the usual suspects in the press. But even a cursory examination of the evidence shows that the case against Wolfowitz has no basis in fact. Wolfowitz was already involved with Riza--a longtime Bank employee--when he arrived in 2005. He told the Bank's directors about the relationship before he took the job and further told them that he wanted to recuse himself from decisions involving her. The directors felt that Riza should either quit her job or be transferred to another agency. But they also said that if she transferred, she should be given a raise because she was already in line for one at the Bank. So off Riza went to the State Department, with a good raise. (If there's any scandal here, it's the high salaries and luxurious benefits of many World Bank employees.) Now, two years later, some of those same directors want to get rid of Wolfowitz for doing the very thing they originally approved. The truth is, there's another agenda at work here. Wolfowitz has pledged to root out corruption among aid recipients, which does not sit well with Bank employees. He is also a strong proponent of the war in Iraq, which in the bureaucracy's view is another (big) strike against him. And finally, he is an American, which irritates the Europeans who want control of the place. Put it all together, and the "scandal" isn't about Paul Wolfowitz as much as it is about an entrenched, comfortable, and corrupt bureaucracy resisting anyone who might dare reform it.