Financial Times Editorial Comment: Why Bush should let a damaged Wolfowitz go

Financial Times Editorial Comment: Why Bush should let a damaged Wolfowitz go
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 14 2007 03:00 | Last updated: April 14 2007 03:00


Should Paul Wolfowitz leave the World Bank? The answer to that question is "yes". Will Mr Wolfowitz leave the World Bank? The answer to that question is murkier. The US put Mr Wolfowitz in his job and the US will decide whether he is to stay. George W. Bush will hate to abandon a loyal henchman. He should do so, none the less.

It would be absurd to leave the decision to the bank's executive directors. True, they promised yesterday to "move expeditiously to reach a conclusion on possible actions to take". If the board did indeed exercise effective oversight, it would be welcome. But it would also be most surprising. These mid-level bureaucrats are not going to reach such a decision on their own.

In practice, national capitals will make the choice, unless Mr Wolfowitz himself takes it out of their hands. The US will be decisive: it is the bank's largest shareholder; it has always appointed the bank's president; and the president himself chose Mr Wolfowitz.

Who would want to take the US on if it decided to defend Mr Wolfowitz to the bitter end? However unhappy they may be with him, the other high-income countries are unlikely to want a big fight with the US over what most governments would consider a relatively unimportant matter. Many developing country members may even find the presidency of a now de-fanged anti-corruption campaigner quite appealing.

Mr Bush tends to be loyal to those he regards as loyal to himself. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, declare that Mr Wolfowitz continues to have "our full confidence". That then would seem to be the end of the matter: Mr Wolfowitz will survive because the US president has decided he should.

Yet this ought not to be the end of the matter. To place loyalty above all other virtues is the ethics of a mafia boss not of the leader of a great country. The US president also needs to consider what is both right and in the interests of his own country.

That the US has in recent years lost a great deal of moral credit around the world is undeniable. But one area where the present administration has been relatively forward-looking has been aid and development. It has raised the share of gross domestic product spent on official aid to a still low 0.17 per cent, but that is well above the mere 0.1 per cent in 1999. It has supported ambitious debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries. It has also, rightly, put much weight on the need to tackle corruption and improve governance in aid recipients.

The best justification for placing Mr Wolfowitz at the bank was his determination to give this last objective overriding priority. It is possible to debate the wisdom of this, since the quality of governance, albeit hugely important, is not the sole determinant of development. But one point nobody can debate: if the US has decided that this is what it wants the World Bank to achieve, it cannot sustain a president who is no longer a credible spokesman for that cause. To do so can only destroy yet more of its own battered moral capital. It would be worse than a crime; it would be a blunder.

Loyalty is indeed a virtue. But loyalty is not the overriding virtue. The US needs to perceive its true interests in having an effective and credible bank. It needs also to preserve its own credibility as a campaigner for good governance. Mr Wolfowitz now needs to go if the aim of his presidency is to survive. The choice for Mr Bush has become as simple and as stark as that.