Everything about Shaha Riza totally explained
Shaha Ali Riza, (born 1953 or 1954), is a
World Bank staffer who is currently on external assignment. She was forced to leave her position as Senior Communications Officer (and acting manager of external affairs) for the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office at the World Bank when
Paul Wolfowitz was brought in as President. Riza had already been romantically linked to Wolfowitz when he was the
Deputy Secretary of Defense under
Donald Rumsfeld in the
Bush Administration. Riza now serves (still on external assignment from the World Bank) with the
Foundation for the Future, a "semi-independent foundation to promote democracy" in the Middle East and North Africa.
Background
Riza was born in
Tripoli,
Libya, to a Libyan father (Khalid Alwalid Algargany) and
Syrian-
Saudi mother. She grew up in
Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and the
United Kingdom. She is a British citizen. She moved to the
United States after her marriage to
Bulent Ali Riza, also spelled Bulent Aliriza, (born 1952) in the late 1980s. Riza studied at the
London School of Economics before taking a
master's degree in
International Relations from the
University of Oxford (1983), where she studied at
St Antony's College. She speaks Arabic, English, French, Italian, and Turkish. She is divorced and has one son who lives with her. Her father was a consultant to
King Saud of Saudi Arabia. Her mother lives in Libya.
Riza specializes in the
Middle East and has carried out field research in a number of
Arab countries. Immediately before joining the
World Bank, she worked at the
National Endowment for Democracy, where she set up and led the endowment’s Middle East programs. Since joining the World Bank in 1997, she worked with the Middle East and North Africa Social and Economic Development Group as a Senior Gender Specialist and then as a Senior Communications Officer in the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office (
MENA). In July 2002, she became the acting manager for external affairs and outreach for the World Bank's MENA region, a position she held until she was required to relinquish her job in the wake of the Wolfowitz hiring. According to a profile of Wolfowitz published in the London
Sunday Times of
March 20,
2005, Riza "shares Wolfowitz’s passion for spreading democracy in the Arab world" and "is said to have reinforced his determination to remove
Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime."
Nevertheless, the
New York Post's page six on
May 23,
2007, reported that Riza and Wolfowitz have split up. Riza reportedly was concerned "by the implication that she was getting ahead with the help of a powerful man."
Wolfowitz scandal
By December 2000, the Daily Mail (London) reported that Wolfowitz was allegedly having an affair with a staffer at SAIS. He had also become smitten with Riza.
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According to Craig Unger, author of
Fall of the House of Bush, "Wolfowitz's critics who knew about the affair delighted in referring to Shaha Riza as 'his neoconcubine.'"
Cheney had wanted to appoint Wolfowitz as head of the CIA, but Clare Wolfowitz -- angry about her husband's affair -- wrote a letter notifying President-elect Bush that it posed a national security risk. The letter was intercepted by
Scooter Libby, who informed Cheney.
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In March 2005, Riza's neighbors began to speak to the press about her personal relationship with
Paul Wolfowitz, who had been nominated by the Bush administration for President of the World Bank despite reported concern from some other Bank member countries. British tabloids played up the story; one opponent at the Bank said: "Unless Riza gives up her job, this will be an impossible conflict of interest." Meanwhile, some of the Arab media expressed surprise that Wolfowitz, given his career reputation as a
neo-conservative and background (a second generation American born to a Polish Jewish immigrant family), would
date an Arab Muslim.
Wolfowitz was confirmed as World Bank President in June 2005. According to a dossier released by the World Bank, Wolfowitz had acknowledged his association with Riza in May. The relationship threatened to violate a World Bank ethics rule against personal relationships between bank employees and their supervisors, including indirect supervision through a chain of command. Wolfowitz's position was that Riza should be allowed to keep her job at the bank if he
recused himself from all personnel actions or decisions that involved her.
The Ethics Committee responded that recusal wasn't good enough and that Riza would have to be reassigned outside Wolfowitz's managerial control, direct or indirect. The committee considered various options for compensating Riza for the disruption to her career.
It advised an in situ promotion.
According to the dossier, Wolfowitz responded to these findings of the Ethics Committee by dictating the terms of Riza's settlement to the Bank's Vice President for Human Resources, Xavier Coll. Riza would be offered a paid external assignment with the State Department, a promotion at the World Bank before the assignment to a tax-free salary of $180,000, and an automatic annual raise of 8 percent. Wolfowitz told the Ethics Committee on August 12 that Coll and Riza had reached an agreement; the formal offer came in September. On
October 24, the Ethics Committee concluded that the external posting meant that the conflict of interest had been resolved. However, the then-chairman of the Ethics Committee,
Ad Melkert, has denied that he was advised of the details of the settlement.
Riza's position in the State Department was in the office of
Elizabeth Cheney (daughter of
Dick Cheney), who worked at the time for
C. David Welch, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Later she transferred from the State Department to the Foundation for the Future.
In February 2006, pseudonymous e-mail messages to the World Bank corruption hotline accused Wolfowitz of ethical violations in regard to compensation to Shaha Riza, as well as to his advisors Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems. In response, the Ethics Committee reported that the "allegations didn't appear appropriate for further consideration by the committee".
In 2007, the
Washington Post reported that Riza's salary had increased from $132,660 to $193,590 per year, tax-exempt. This article led to a cascade of news coverage and demands for Wolfowitz's resignation. A new ad hoc investigation was set up at the World Bank. Shaha Riza wrote the committee that she was a victim in the case, arguing that the conflict-of-interest concern was spurious from the beginning and that she never wanted to leave the World Bank.
In contrast to claims made earlier by Wolfowitz's office, the Washington Post reported that (i) Wolfowitz had directly dictated the terms of the contract to the head of human resources, Coll, (ii) the Bank's top lawyer had been excluded from the negotiation of the contract, and (iii) neither the Bank's board nor the Ethics Committee had been informed at the time of the specific terms of the final agreement. The then-chair of the Ethics Committee, Ad Melkert, has emphasized the last point.
On
April 12,
2007, Wolfowitz apologized for what he called a "mistake," but wouldn't comment about resigning as World Bank governors met on
April 15. With the Board of Executive Directors still reviewing the details of the case, Wolfowitz commented, "I'm not going to preempt their [theBoard's] deliberations. I'll accept any remedies they propose."
On
April 17,
2007, the opinion column of
The Wall Street Journal published a viewpoint on the scandal that provided often overlooked details and characterized the "scandal" as a witch hunt. Likewise,
The Los Angeles Times published an
op-ed calling it "a non story" and a "bum rap".
The New York Times called for Wolfowitz's resignation on
April 28,
2007, saying that "The best thing Paul Wolfowitz can do for the World Bank, the country and himself is to step down."
On
May 17,
2007 it was announced that Wolfowitz would resign effective
June 30,
2007.
Autobiography and publication list
Worldbank Group Staff Connections 2005 (PDF)
Worldbank Group CommunicationsFurther Information
Get more info on 'Shaha Riza'.
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