World Bank Update -- Wolfowitz Rumors Confirmed?

I have been blogging for some time about the search to replaceme James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, who is scheduled to retire in May. Rumors have swirled around a number of candidates, but the hottest ones have focused on Paul Wolfowitz. In today's press conference, President Bush indicated that Wolfowitz was, in fact, his candidate which, by custom, should mean that he's a shoo-in.

There remains the question I raised in earlier posts of why this announcement was not made formally and much earlier. Bush's statements at the news conference seem to indicate that, while he has expressed his personal preference for Wolfowitz' appointment, some other world leaders have been less than enthusiastic about the appointment.

Interesting.... stay tuned.

UPDATE:

Here's Forbes report:

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. 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."
....
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.

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.

Read the whole thing here.

The French are not pleased [but you knew that already].

AFP reaction:

By choosing Paul Wolfowitz to lead the World Bank, US President George W. Bush will only fuel criticism of the liberal, free-market philosophy that underpins the Washington-based lending organisations.
....
Njoki Njoroge Njehu, director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, which campaigns for economic fairness, said one of the neoconservative architects of the war in Iraq was "the most controversial choice Bush could have made".

"As the most prominent advocate of imposing the US's will on the world, this appointment signals to developing countries that the US is just as serious about imposing its will on borrowers from the World Bank as on the countries of the Middle East," he said.

Read it all here.

The Financial Times reveals [surprise, surprise!] that many Europeans, and Harvard faculty members [really?] are shocked and disappointed in Wolfowitz' appointment.

Read it here.

There is no more capable, brilliant or committed individual in the Bush administration than Paul Wolfowitz. His integrity is beyond question. He has long felt that development and security were intimately related. Even the FT admits as much.

Mr Wolfowitz has said on more than one occasion that he believes development is vital to winning the war on terrorism. In a speech at the Brookings Institution in 2002, he said: "The hundreds of millions of Muslims who aspire to modernity, freedom and prosperity are, in reality, themselves on the front line of the struggle against terrorism".

With this and the Bolton appointment Bush is serving notice on the NGOs that a new world order has arrived and that they have a role to play in it, but not the leading one they aspired to.

And this travesty is the NYT hit piece on Wolfowitz. Needless to say, they aren't happy. According to the NRO "Beltway Buzz" neither is Sen. Kerry, who calls the appointment "mystifying."

Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard, though, points out that several top Democrats, includin Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Patrick Leahy have all praised Wolfowitz' appointment. [hat tip Instapundit].

So has the Jerusalem Post.