- WASHINGTON - President Bush
on Wednesday tapped Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has been
a lightning rod for criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and other defense
policies, to take over as head of the World Bank.
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- Bush told a news conference that Wolfowitz, now Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top deputy, was "a compassionate, decent
man who will do a fine job at the World Bank. That's why I put him up."
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- The administration began notifying other countries
that Wolfowitz was the U.S. candidate to replace World Bank President James
Wolfensohn, who is stepping down as head of the 184-nation development
bank on June 1 at the end of his second five-year term.
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- The United States is the World Bank's largest member
nation. The bank traditionally has had an American president. Its sister
institution, the International Monetary Fund, traditionally has been headed
by a European.
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- Bush, during the news conference, noted that he had
called Premier Silvio Berlusconi to talk about Iraq and other issues earlier
in the day and also said that he had discussed Wolfowitz, "my nominee,"
with the Italian leader.
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- "He is a man of good experience," Bush
said. "He helped manage a large organization .... a skilled diplomat,
worked at the State Department."
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- Wolfowitz, 61, was sworn into his post at the Defense
Department in March 2001, marking his third tour of duty at the Pentagon.
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- He was regarded as more academic and ideological
than his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz was among the
most forceful of those in the Bush administration in arguing that Iraq's
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he had predicted that
Americans would be welcomed as liberators rather than occupiers once they
toppled Saddam's government.
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- Wolfowitz, a veteran of six administrations, has
earned a reputation for being a foreign policy hawk -- the view that the
United States should use its superpower status to push for reforms in other
nations. A conservative scholar, Wolfowitz, before taking over the Defense
Department post, had served as dean and professor of international relations
at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns
Hopkins University.
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- Administration supporters of Wolfowitz said Wednesday
he is suited for the World Bank post and pointed to his management experiences
at the Pentagon and his diplomatic experience at the State Department.
He had served as assistant secretary of State for east Asia during the
Philippine transition to democracy. He also serves as U.S. ambassador to
Indonesia.
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- Wolfensohn, bank president since June 1, 1995, emphasized
reducing poverty in developing nations and making lending projects more
effective. Previously, he headed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts and was a Wall Street investment banker for 20 years.
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- The Bush administration has been pushing for major
reforms in how the World Bank operates, especially interested in having
the development bank dole out aid in the forms of grants, which don't have
to be repaid, rather than loans.
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- A number of people were said to have been in the
running as his successor, among them Carly Fiorina, the recently ousted
chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co.; John Taylor, the Treasury Department's
undersecretary for international affairs; Peter McPherson, the former head
of Michigan State University who served as Bush's point man on rebuilding
Iraq's financial system; Randall Tobias, Bush's global AIDS coordinator;
and Christine Todd Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection
Agency.
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