Shaha, Paul and Iraq - Tell What You Know
New York Times, Apr 17 2007
Unusual Trip to Iraq in ‘03 for Wolfowitz Companion
While he was Deputy Secretary of Defense, Wolfowitz ordered a private contractor, SAIC, to hire Shaha Riza to go to Iraq from April 25 to May 31, 2003. On her return, Shaha briefed the board about what she had seen in Baghdad, which raised concerns among some bank staff and board members about the capacity in which she had traveled to Iraq. At the time it was against bank policy for its officials to go there. It was not clear why the Pentagon specifically asked for Shaha to travel to Iraq. It is against staff rules for an employee to be paid by an external company like SAIC while on Bank payroll. Shaha’s lawyer, Victoria Toensing, says Shaha went as a volunteer and took a leave of absence from the World Bank, paying for her own benefits while she was on leave. Who has more on this? Where is the human resources paperwork?
25 comments:
I am the same poster for the 2 comments on Ana.
Since Riza is a British national (though she is born either in Tunisia or Libya), how/why is she allowed to work for the State dept let alone be part of the State dept. delegation in Iraq in 2003?
How many nationalities does she has and what about security and clearance required to handle some hot potatoes like the Iraq file?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2003668841_banked17.html
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/business/10118883.html
What about other misdeeds?
What about irregularities in Bank consulting and other contracts?
Someone need to dig up PW's memo he wrote at DoD specifying which country may and may not receive Iraq reconstruction contracts.
Basically, anyone who didn't send troops, money, and pound the table supporting the Iraq war were locked out of the contracts --- including countries like Canada.
I bet the same policies were applied with the contracts that PW controlled at the Bank.
Somebody... do some digging.
PW's scandal goes much deeper than just a few crony hires and coverups.
He is basically continuing to fight the Iraq war at the Bank, except he is doing it as President of the Bank and with the Bank's money.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/17/the_problem_that_is_paul_wolfowitz/
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_5680596
A civil society organization in Ghana is calling for Wolfowitz to resign; the story here: http://www.myjoyonline.com/archives/business/200704/3592.asp
http://www.whistleblower.org/content/
press_detail.cfm?press_id=929
GAP Releases SAIC-Riza Contract
"(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is releasing the contract between Science Application International Corporation (SAIC) and the U.S. Defense Department (Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance – ORHA) from 2003. The contract shows that Shaha Riza, the companion of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, now caught up in a scandal involving her salary raises, did work for SAIC from March 2003 to May 2003. GAP is also releasing the Department of Defense’s Inspector General’s (DoDIG) assessment of the contract, which shows that a DoD official specifically requested Shaha Riza to work on the contract."
This editorial points out that some of the same people who are defending Wolfowitz now were quick to attack Annan during his own time of controversy:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37383
Now that the Government Accountability Project released the DoD contract between Riza and SAIC via DoD, the question is, who was it that really 'requested' her for the job?
Was it Wolfowitz? Feith? Both?
Did they reveal any pre-existing relationships or conflicts of interest with Riza?
It doesn't look good that she was sleeping with Wolfowitz before, during and after the contract was awarded....
Wolfowitz, SAIC, DoD, etc. have some pretty interesting explaining to do.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-04160774358.htm
This is a very edifying article on the "President"
"One might correct me by saying the Wolfowitz is no longer in the current government, that he has moved on, up, over to the World Bank. Given the structure of the World Bank and its voting power dependent on the size of the participating country’s economic support, the U.S. has an effective veto over any decisions by the World Bank. That makes it little more than another agency of the American government operating not in the military theatre, but in that other theater of the absurd, that of economics."
http://jamesfallows.com/test/2007/04/05/wolfowitz-mcnamara-chapter-402/
The above is one of my favorites and I am a flaming Republican.
This is how Wolfowitz issues contracts: (From NY Times)
A REGION INFLAMED: THE RECONSTRUCTION; PENTAGON BARS THREE NATIONS FROM IRAQ BIDS
*Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. More information.
December 10, 2003, Wednesday
By DOUGLAS JEHL (NYT); Foreign Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 1, Column 6, 1066 words
Correction Appended
DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Pentagon bars French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for rebuilding Iraq, citing US security interests; Deputy Sec Paul D Wolfowitz's directive is most substantial retaliation to date against allies that did not support Bush adminstration's war; only companies from US, Iraq and 61 'coalition partners' will be eligible for 26 lucrative contracts; subcontractors are not affected; Sen Joseph Biden criticizes 'gratuitous slap' that does nothing to protect security but alienates allies whose help is needed; Rep Christopher Shays concurs
Here's a fascinating little trip down memory lane:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/19/AR2006021901137.html
In this fawning piece on Wolfowitz's anticorruption battles, it speaks of Paul's yanking of a contract to an Argentine firm for supposedly topping the poor workers' salaries. Bet they were topped by $60000 is all I can think. Scrooge Wolf is quite the hypocrite, no?
Here's a little fun compare and contrast. Here we have Patricia Adams writing a fawning ode to Wolfowitz's corrruption-fighting campaign in the National Post.
http://www.odiousdebts.org/odiousdebts/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=17356
Now, check out what that same Patricia Adams was saying about the SAME corruption-fighting effort just two months ago.
http://ins.onlinedemocracy.ca/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8400
Just call her 180 Girl, she sells fast.
Ms. Riza's personnel record on the Government Accountability Project website shows that she was on leave without pay for one month in 2003. This does not however mean that the outside work and trip to Iraq were necessarily in accordance with Staff Rules - she was still a regular staff member. This leave without pay would have had to be approved both by her supervisor and by HR, if it met criteria set out in the policy on such leave.
"The bank was under a lot of pressure at the time to do something in Iraq very quickly," said Jean-Louis Sarbib, a former vice president for the Middle East and North Africa at the bank. "Shaha went to Iraq, I believe, with a U.S. delegation to talk to civil society groups and, in particular, women."
Sarbib, who retired from the bank in 2006, was Riza's supervisor at the time. He said he "was not really privy to the arrangements" under which she went to Iraq.
Upon her return, he said, she briefed members of the bank's executive board and was "rather upbeat" about the country's future and the status of women there.
Thus even her own boss at that time didn't what she was up to :-(
Hey it must be nice when you know some neocons who are your real bosses not the WB
SR was in MNAVP unit at the time, so the VP would have been the responsible manager approving the leave if the leave was approved at that time. What's unknown is the reason for the leave and whether all relevant facts about it (such as working for a US defense contractor and travelling to Iraq) were disclosed by SR before the leave was approved....
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/Columns/20070418074059/Article/index_html
On page 10 of the contract on the GAP website, point 7.2 states that the contract is for 90 days from each of the 3 SMEs. So 60 days of SR work would not have been covered by SR's leave of absence, which was from May 1 to June 1, 2003.
Anatomy of a Contract
A closer look at SAIC's deal
http://www.public-i.org/wow/report.aspx?aid=71
The contracts all appear to last for one year and call for all of the work to be directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Feith's top deputy at the Pentagon is Christopher "Ryan" Henry. Henry was a senior vice president at SAIC until October 2002.
This is one of the best smackdowns of them all:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11311
woof! woof!
This guy is a typical example of how the world is increasingly directed by folks who climb & cling to positions of power by manipulation, chicanery and pure arrogance.
I am the 1st poster on this thread who was asking about security clearance. Another person-Sidney Blumental is asking the same question:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/
2007/04/19/wolfowitz/print.html
"Riza, who is not a U.S. citizen, had to receive a security clearance in order to work at the State Department. Who intervened? It is not unusual to have British or French midlevel officers at the department on exchange programs, but they receive security clearances based on the clearances they already have with their host governments. Granting a foreign national who is detailed from an international organization a security clearance, however, is extraordinary, even unprecedented. So how could this clearance have been granted?"
it is amazing how you have gotten rid of anything critical of the bank itself from the posts! your only agenda is to get wolfowitz out. clearly you are bank staff who do not have any moral courage to come out! you are scared of criticism from the civil society and therefore you have removed the posts that were pointing to the damage that the world bank and imf are doing to the world. removing wolfowitz is important but it won't solve world's poverty!!
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