March 26, 2005

NEED TO KNOW:

Blair clashes with Cabinet over Wolfowitz nomination (Nick Mathiason, March 27, 2005, The Observer)

Tony Blair has clashed with Cabinet members in a bitter row over the nomination of the neo-conservative US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, as president of the World Bank.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn is said to be furious that Blair kept him in the dark over the nomination, which was announced by President George Bush two weeks ago.

Benn has written to the Prime Minister outlining his frustrations. Sources close to Gordon Brown describe the Chancellor as 'incandescent' over the nomination. Blair was aware of Bush's plans for a month before they became public, and declined to tell either the Chancellor, who is a key IMF figure, or Benn, a World Bank board member.

But a Blair aide said the Prime Minister was 'comfortable' with the architect of the Iraq war taking the helm of the world's most important poverty alleviation institution, which dishes out loans of $20 billion each year.


When was the last White House that could keep something like this nomination from the press for a month?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 26, 2005 9:56 PM
Comments

When did the socialists in the UK parliament become part of our advise and consent process? I thought our founding fathers deliberately left them out.

Posted by: erp at March 27, 2005 10:05 AM

There have been a number of reports that Bush consulted with the Europeans before nominating Wolfowitz, but they're getting absolutely no play. Also, I think that the nomination did leak, but was dismissed as crazy by the commentariat.

Posted by: David Cohen at March 27, 2005 2:43 PM

And why is it somehow a duty of a non-American leader to announce a prospective nomination by the US President that the President hasn't even made yet?

Posted by: ray at March 27, 2005 9:36 PM

Constitutional advise and consent has nothing to do with this as the World Bank is not part of the US government.

The World Bank is an international organization. Tradition says an American heads the World Bank and a European heads the IMF, but that is an international political understanding dating back to Bretton Woods.

It is natural that members of the Blair government who work with the World Bank and IMF be upset that Blair did not tell them about this ahead of time.

Posted by: Chris Durnell at March 28, 2005 10:53 AM
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