Profile: Wolfowitz's World Bank tenure burdened by Iraq legacy

By Tony Czuczka May 18, 2007, 0:02 GMT

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz leaves his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland on 17 May 2007. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz announced his resignation 17 May 2007 effective 30 June 2007 a World Bank statement said. EPA/KEVIN WOLF

Washington ­ Paul Wolfowitz is known as a leader of US 'neoconservatives' who have shaped US President George W Bush's foreign policy and pushed for the invasion of Iraq.

A veteran Washington insider who has served with Vice President Dick Cheney in two US administrations, Wolfowitz, 63, has doggedly pursued the idea of spreading democracy and confronting dictators.

His biggest role came when he helped plan the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath as Bush's deputy defence secretary, driven by a zeal to remake the Middle East following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

But another image may come to define his World Bank presidency: the embarrassing holes in Wolfowitz's socks when he took off his shoes for a mosque visit in January 2007 in Turkey.

Photos of his big toes peeking out went around the world, prompting jokes about his lack of decorum and an offer by the Turkish clothing industry to supply him with intact socks.

US director Michael Moore's 2004 documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, scorned Wolfowitz, showing him slicking his hair before a television appearance. The aide who handed him the comb, Kevin Kellems, followed Wolfowitz to the World Bank and became his top communications strategist.

With little experience in development policy, Wolfowitz was a daring choice when Bush nominated him to head the 185-nation bank, a leading aid agency based two blocks from the White House.

Before taking over in June 2005, he told the Washington Post that the World Bank could help complement Bush's goal 'of expanding the realm of freedom in the world.'

Two themes became his focus: fighting corruption in countries that borrow from the bank, and boosting aid to Africa.

But World Bank member governments, worried that Wolfowitz was giving himself too much power to punish countries, made him tone down the anti-corruption drive. His effort to push World Bank rebuilding aid for postwar Iraq raised charges that he was doing the Bush administration's bidding.

Wolfowitz's world view was shaped by his experience with the consequences of totalitarian regimes. The son of a Jewish immigrant from Poland, his father and grandparents left Warsaw in 1920, and many relatives who remained in Europe died in the Holocaust.

Early in his government career, Wolfowitz raised the option of preemptive attacks against dictators to ward off threats to the US and its allies.

Just like his father, Wolfowitz initially studied mathematics, then earned a doctorate in political science at the University of Chicago and taught at prestigious Yale University.

With conservatives out of favour during Bill Clinton's presidency, Wolfowitz was dean of a Washington foreign policy school for much of the 1990s.

Born December 22, 1943 in New York, Wolfowitz has held a series of posts at the Pentagon and the US State Department. He was ambassador to Indonesia under president Ronald Reagan from 1986-89.