Connect: Iraq needs advice rather than money from international donors to rebuild its institutions, Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, said this week. He added that Iraq was not making the best use of the money it had. Wolfowitz, by the way, is a millionaire who has a salary of about €300,000 a year from his job. This is, of course, merely to supplement wildly generous perks.
Wolfowitz staunchly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and almost 3,000 American ones have been lost. It has to date cost the US about €270 billion or, for people who prefer figures, €270,000,000,000. Not a cent of that total has been wasted, mind. After all, it's crucial to make the best use of the money at your disposal.
The average GDP in Iraq in 2005 was around €2,600 a year. Wolfowitz makes, in salary alone, more than 100 times as much. Given Wolfowitz's perks, God alone knows how many average Iraqis it would take to make as much money as the president of the World Bank.
His really is astonishing guff. Wolfowitz, son of a committed Zionist, former frat boy and advocate of Leo Strauss neo-conservatism, was a primary mover in invading Iraq. Now that even Americans, despite intense and screaming propaganda to the contrary, have rejected that invasion, "justified" by lies, lies and more lies, Wolfowitz says Iraq needs advice rather than money.
Let's construct a hypothetical scenario. Consider that you strongly backed the invasion of Iraq and even that you believed - really believed - all the lies about weapons of mass destruction, Iraqis strewing flowers and greeting Americans as liberators. Many people did. When however, it became clear that the invasion was based on lies, could you not reassess your beliefs? Everybody is wrong some of the time. It's part of the nature of being human. But the sheer hard neck of advocating a disastrous invasion and then turning around - while stuffing your own pockets - to advise that the invaded need advice more than money, is breathtaking. Would you be able to continue knowing that your initial support for invasion was utterly wrong? Would you? Perhaps the most famous quote about Wolfowitz is the one attributed to the Economist magazine. It claimed a former colleague said: "Hawk doesn't do him justice. What about velociraptor?"
Given Wolfowitz's guff this week, that seems hard on velociraptors but it makes the point. Surely the decent thing for Wolfowitz to do was to resign his position or at least say nothing of Iraq.
But his statement this week shows no contrition whatsoever. In fact, it's like a global version of Charlie Haughey advising us all to "tighten our belts" while he spent fortunes on shirts in Paris. Wolfowitz, remember, is a former deputy US defence chief, below only Donald Rumsfeld. This week Germans sought to have Rumsfeld tried as a war criminal.
That won't happen, of course. But if Rumsfeld is a war criminal - and there is compelling evidence that he might be - what of Wolfowitz? Is he not a war criminal too? If Rumsfeld is to be held responsible for Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and "extraordinary rendition" (a euphemism for kidnapping and torture) does Wolfowitz, as Rumsfeld's number two, not bear some responsibility?
In fact, his guff this week seemed despicable and not merely embarrassing like say, Pat Kenny's gushing over a €5,000 prize on The Late Late Show. That's only a couple of days' work for Kenny but he uses superlatives to describe such a prize for a punter in the audience. Sure, anybody would be glad to win a few days' pay but Kenny's raiding of superlatives is embarrassing and irritating.
Essentially, it says that the prize is a great deal of money to you, even though it's only a couple of days' work for me. Wolfowitz - the man who makes more money than the combined income of 100 average Iraqis - is saying the same thing. "They [ Iraqis] have a lot of money on their own and it's not managed right and they know that," he said.
Is spending €270,000,000,000 (and rising) on an invasion of another country the best use of money? Forget even the death, dismemberment and hardship which the invasion has wrought. Just think of the money and recall that one of the prime architects of this colossal waste of loot is now saying that Iraq is not making the best use of money it already has.
There is something seriously wrong if Wolfowitz is allowed to turn a blind eye towards the US administration's waste of money. It is, after all, about four times greater than Iraq's annual GDP. All 28 million or so Iraqis had a combined GDP last year of about €70,000,000,000. (Hence the average figure of €2,600 a year each.) What sense of himself must a man like Paul Wolfowitz have? He ignores huge waste in lives and money because of an invasion that he vigorously backed, yet he says the invaded country mostly needs advice.
Here is some advice to Iraqis: ignore Wolfowitz. There's hard neck and hard neck but his miserable statement this week is truly vile.