Wolfowitz Promotes Early Riza?

What has Paul Wolfowitz been up to since departing the Dept. of Defense. He has been President of the World Bank, providing needed cash for the less fortunate among us...like his significant other.

Two months after arriving at the bank on June 1, 2005, Wolfowitz sent a memo to the bank's vice president of human resources, laying out details concerning [girlfriend] Shaha Riza's employment and compensation.

"I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the following terms and conditions," Wolfowitz instructed. "You should accept immediately her offer to be detailed to an outside institution of her choosing, while retaining bank salary and benefits."

The Wolfowitz memo went on say that Riza should receive a promotion, draw a salary of $180,000 and get annual pay increases of 8 percent.

Before the job change, Riza was believed to be getting paid close to $133,000. After the transfer, she received $193,590, according to the Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group.

According to the Chicago Tribune

"When Shaha Riza, girlfriend of then-incoming World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and an employee of the bank, was dispatched to work at the State Department in the fall of 2005 to avoid a "conflict of interest,'' she carried a bank salary of $180,000.

And since she moved on from the State Department to the Washington-based Foundation for the Future last year, still on the bank's payroll, bank documents show that, depending on possible pay-grade promotions, her salary, $192,820, could reach $209,480 or $244,960 by 2010 – "the difference at the end of five years is not insubstantial,'' the World Bank's human relations officer noted at the time she left bank headquarters.

It is Wolfowitz's hand in this arrangement which now has jeopardized the job of the World Bank president, the former deputy secretary of defense whom President Bush nominated for the bank presidency two years ago. Wolfowitz has said he is "sorry'' about his role in "negotiations'' about Riza's transfer to the State Department posting which he now acknowledges, "in hindsight,'' he should have 'kept myself out of.'' "

This is a trend for Mr. Wolfowitz, who as one of the Neo-Con architects for the "War on Terror", led us our warring with Iraq based on less than credible information. Of course, in context to the Bush School of Human Resource Management, poor performance can earn you the Presidential Medal of Freedom--ask George Tenet.

This Feinstein Thing

So far the only story about speculation that California Sen. Diane Feinstein has used her position to direct dollars toward two corporations with ties to her husband come from a single source with many people, including myself speculating as to its meaning. Hyper-conservative talk radio personality, Michael Savage, is running with this story. It is apparent that Feinstein, given her high profile as Chair of the Senate Rules and Administration (which oversees ethics violations) is worth targeting to shift the focus from other scandals including one's previously mentioned on the pages here involving Republicans.

According to the Metroactive story by Peter Byrne, Senator Feinstein, "as chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee." This story was reiterated in a press release from the Association of Alternative Weeklies in late January.

If there is anything else to this story, the larger mass media isn't picking it up. Still a statement from Sen. Feinstein explaining her side of the story would be helpful. Otherwise, this thing could snowball.