White House to Quickly Replace Wolfowitz
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trying to put a controversy behind it, the Bush administration was wasting no time finding a successor to World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, who will resign over his handling of a pay package for his girlfriend.
Mr. Wolfowitz yesterday announced that he would step down at the end of June, his leadership undermined by a furor over the compensation he arranged in 2005 for Shaha Riza, a bank employee.
His departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.
It also ends a potential political headache for President Bush, who had named Mr. Wolfowitz to the post.
The Wolfowitz flap had been seen as a growing liability that threatened to tarnish the poverty-fighting institution’s reputation and hobble its ability to persuade countries around the world to contribute billions of dollars to provide financial assistance to poor nations.
