Top deputy tells Wolfowitz to step down

April 19, 2007
Top deputy tells Wolfowitz to step down

A deputy to Paul Wolfowitz urged the World Bank chief to resign in the interests of the institution during a meeting of the bank's management, sources who participated in the meeting said.

World Bank Managing Director Graeme Wheeler, a bank veteran named by Wolfowitz as one of his two deputies a year ago, raised the issue at a meeting of the bank's vice presidents.

Wheeler, a former World Bank treasurer who joined the bank from the New Zealand treasury, is widely respected in the institution.

He was one of the first career staffers Wolfowitz brought into his management team after he took the helm of the bank in 2005 and came under fire for surrounding himself with people he brought with him from the Pentagon and White House.