It surprises me that no one else has put a diary up on this. Leaves on the Current called me about it at around 10:30 last night. This morning's FInancial Times has a new story up on Paul Wolfowitz entitled Wolfowitz’s tenure faces fresh test. Here is the intro:
Paul Wolfowitz’s tenure as president of the World Bank faces a further test after the emergence of a classified Pentagon report pointing to a fresh conflict of interest apparently involving his girlfriend, Shaha Riza.
The report said Mr Wolfowitz told Pentagon investigators he enlisted the help of a World Bank employee with whom he had a "close personal relationship" in "activity supporting the war" in Iraq when he was deputy secretary of defence.
Below I will offer a bit more from the article, and a very few brief comments of my own. Really. The very few and brief part. I mean it this time. Oh, and the real issue is not Woflie's problems with conflicts of interest at the World Bank. Keep reading to find out what I mean.
There is one thing important to note about the Pentagon report:
Although Ms Riza is thought to be the bank employee referred to in the Pentagon report, the name has been blacked out in a copy of the report obtained by the Financial Times.
That means it could be someone else, but if so, then Paul was not only two-timing his wife with Riza, but three-timing her with someone else. I would find that hard to grasp. So let's assume it was MS Riza.
The Financial Times story is presenting this in terms of the continuation of the conflict of interest already noted about Wolfowitz's relationship. I do not think that is the real importance of the story. Let me offer two more paragraphs, my final snip, which brings the focus where I think it belongs:
Bank officials said the board was also assessing possible conflicts of interest in 2003 when Ms Riza entered into a contract with a company that provides logistics, intelligence and advice to the Pentagon.
E-mails show the company entered into the contract at the direction of Mr Wolfowitz and following a recommendation by state department officials, including Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, US vice-president. The Pentagon investigation was carried out in 2005 as Mr Wolfowitz was leaving the defence department to join the bank.
From the standpoint of the World Bank there is now a separate conflict of interest on the part of MS Riza. But for us this represents a possible additional thread on which to pull about how our being taken to war was manipulated. Remember, the report talks about Wolfowitz enlisting the assistance of a friend at the World Bank in "an activity supporting the war." It is not clear from the report if that activity was in supporting the war BEFORE we went to war or after we had embarked on hostilities. In a sense it does not matter. The article notes that the emails make it clear that the contract was directed by Wolfowitz, that it was facilitated by State Department personnel including Liz Cheney (and here I have to immediately ask if either Powell or Armitage knew about these recommendations, or if Cheney and the others were operating as moles on behalf of the neo-con and pro-war group led by her father).
And whether before going to war or after hostilities began, why was it necessary to engage the services of on outside apparently for-profit entity dealing with logistics and intelligence. Why even if such an entity was necessary to provide advise was a major player a foreign national? And what did the Pentagon find it necessary to do such a report in 2005? Oh, and have the appropriate committees on the Hill or the various commissions involved in investigating the buildup to the war seen this report? Why has it not been a previous matter of public record?
At this point we can only speculate, but given the previous track record of this administration, one cannot help but wonder what the relationship of this entity wasw with, say, the Office of Special Plans run by Doug Feith, which we knew was involved in manipulating intelligence in order to make a case for war. Looking back at Iran-Contra, we might remember the efforts by Casey, North, and others for an off-the-shelf and not under the supervision and oversight of the Congress intelligence organization. Are we beginning to see that the equivalent activity in the current administration was not restricted to things like OSP, but also involved the use of private entities designed to mask from the Congress and the press what they were doing? And might that be why the administration has tried so hard to stop investigations of the various activities involving a certain number of Republican Congressmen, especially from California, because they overlap with other aspects of this public-private scheme to take the nation to war (remember, MZM was involved in intelligence support activities, there is Dusty Foggo at the CIA, there are the parties in DC with the women brought by Shirlington Limousine, etc., etc., etc.).
Last bit of speculation - in Watergate the panic in the coverup was not because of the specific break-in to the DNC, as stupid and embarrassing as that was. The people involved had been involved in so many other nefarious activities that there was real fear of those activities being exposed, as eventually they were - Dita Beard and ITT, the break-in at the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the Huston plan, and so on. It is not clear to me that we ever did learn ALL of those kinds of activities in the Nixon administration, but the unravelling of the coverup exposed a great deal of what had been rotten in the Nixon administration. And I have to wonder if the reason the White House has fought so hard to cut off investigations and to protect key individuals is because it has a similar kind of exposure. We are beginning to see that in the US Attorney scandal. Might this bit on Wolfowitz help unravel some of the other misdeeds?
Just a speculation with which to begin your day.
Peace.