Wolfowitz about to fund Iraq with WORLD BANK Funds (NOT WB policy)

[Gloria]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36690


1//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy
WOLFOWITZ MAY BRING BANK BACK TO IRAQ

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz may appoint a new resident director for Iraq soon, a move that sources inside the Bank say could contradict the institution's policies on engagement in conflict-stricken areas and put his role in the 2003 U.S. invasion back into the limelight. The move by Wolfowitz, the former number two official at the Pentagon and a main architect of the U.S.-led war, likely means the Bank would release new loans to the occupied Arab nation, despite the deteriorating security situation and recent disclosures of massive corruption in reconstruction efforts. "This is exactly what he shouldn't be doing and what the board was initially afraid that he would do, which is to use the financial resources of the World Bank to take some of the heat off the U.S. Treasury and U.S. policy," Bea Edwards of the Washington-based watchdog group Government Accountability Project told IPS. In a previous statement, Edwards argued that "Wolfowitz's apparent determination to use the World Bank to further questionable American military goals in the Middle East is a fundamental distortion of the Bank's mission, a violation of its founding Articles of Agreement, and a reckless waste of donor resources." The Bank has a policy called Procedure 2.30 ("Development Cooperation and Conflict"), which states that to operate in a country emerging from a conflict, the Bank must first prepare a "watching brief," develop a transitional support strategy, begin transitional reconstruction, then begin post-conflict reconstruction, and finally return to normal lending. ... Anticipating that Iraq could eventually take a more prominent role at the Bank, the board has periodically issued official statements -- a highly unusual measure -- telling Wolfowitz that they want to be updated on any plans for Iraq. The news that he is discussing a contract with a new country director has caused those concerns to resurface.

(AN EXPANDED EXCERPT OF THIS FEATURED ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE SUMMARIES)




More stuff at the current World Media Watch up at:


http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lalumia/168