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Dr. Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943), son of the statistician/information theorist Jacob Wolfowitz, is United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, and President George W. Bush's nominee for President of the World Bank.
Prior to his appointment as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense —second in charge of the defense department — Wolfowitz was Dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He taught international relations at Johns Hopkins and Yale University. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Cornell University and a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago.
During the Reagan administration, Dr. Wolfowitz served for three years as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia. Some critics of Wolfowitz have pointed out his lack of criticism and even outright support for the Suharto regime that was in power at the time.
Wolfowitz is considered a "neoconservative" and possibly a Straussian known for his "hawkish" views, passionate pro-Israel advocacy and staunch support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
His recent nomination as President of the World Bank follows a tradition of an American leading that institution and the IMF being led by a European.
Political views
A military analyst under Ronald Reagan, Wolfowitz famously denounced U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in his conflict with Iran. Wolfowitz was later a leading participant in the Project for the New American Century. That think tank formed in 1997 during the Clinton presidency, and expressed a new foreign policy with regard to Iraq and other "potential aggressor states", dismissing "containment" in favor of "preemption"; strike first to eliminate threats and advocated the use of force in Iraq to "protect our vital interests in the Gulf", as evinced by the 1998 PNAC Letter to then President Bill Clinton. Clinton, along with George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, and other former Bush administration officials, dismissed calls for "preemption" in favor of continued "containment." This was the policy of George W. Bush as well for his first several months in office (although former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill claims differently in Ron Suskind's book The Price of Loyalty). Many saw Wolfowitz's plan as a "blueprint for U.S. hegemony" and his "preemption" policy remained contained until the terrorist attacks of September 11 revived hawkish advocacy for defense through preemptive action.
Following the terrorist attacks of 9-11 debate began within the White House as to the degrees of action to take against Al Qaeda. Certain members of President Bush's cabinet, led by Wolfowitz, advocated preemptive strikes against Iraq alongside those against terror cells in Afghanistan. Out of this came the creation of what would later be dubbed the Bush Doctrine, centering on preemption and a broad-based anti-terrorism campaign.
Despite his support for Israel (Wolfowitz has family, including a sister, in Israel), Wolfowitz is also one of the few neoconservatives in the Bush administration to have endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state. Wolfowitz has acknowledged the sufferings of the Palestinian people in their conflict with Israel, and in 2002 was heckled for expressing such views at a pro-Israel lobby rally.
In addition, Wolfowitz has been a notable backer of Iranian dissidents for more than 15 years, leading Azar Nafisi to dedicate her bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran to him.
Although Wolfowitz never served in the military, he had one encounter more frightening than Zionist heckling. On October 26, 2003, he was in Baghdad, Iraq, for a brief official tour. While he was staying at the Al-Rashid Hotel, it was hit by several rockets fired at the building. Army Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring was killed and 17 others wounded. There was nothing to indicate that Wolfowitz was the target of the attack. Wolfowitz and his DOD staffers escaped unharmed and Wolfowitz returned to the safety of the United States on October 28.
Wolfowitz was critical and dismissive of General Eric K. Shinseki during pre-war testimony before Congress when he called the Army Chief of Staff "wildly off the mark" when asked for estimates of the size of the post war occupation force. Dr. Wolfowitz estimated that fewer than 10,000 troops would be necessary. He was equally dismissive of estimates that the cost would be between $65-$95 billion dollars, stating "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong" and "I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction." As of March 2005 over 170,000 US military personnel are in Iraq with another 20,000+ in Kuwait and Qatar. Additionally it is estimated that as many as 30,000 private security personnel are in use in Iraq. The total cost for the war and reconstruction ranges from $250-$350 billion.
External links
- DoD's transcript of the phone conversation that served as the basis for Wolfowitz's famous interview with Vanity Fair magazine
- The Believer by Peter J. Boyer, The New Yorker, November 1, 2004
- PBS Frontline: The War Behind Closed Doors
- The Economist on Paul Wolfowitz
- David Brooks in the New York Times on Paul Wolfowitz
- Paul Wolfowitz's political donations
- Article on his appointment to head the World Bank from the New York Times
- Profile of Wolfowitz from the New York Times
- Article on his appointment to the head of the World Bank from The Guardian
See also
Further reading
- Seymour Hersh. 2004. Chain of Command: From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 0060195916.
- James Mann. 2004. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet New York: Viking. ISBN 0670032999.
- Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke. 2004. America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521838347.
- Stephen F. Hayes and D.A.H. Hirshey. 2005. The Brain: Paul Wolfowitz and the Making of the Bush Doctrine, HarperCollins. ISBN 0060723467.
- Bob Woodward. 2004. Plan of Attack. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 074325547X.
- Andrew Sullivan on Paul Wolfowitz