Shaha Riza

Shaha Riza شاها
Born	Tripoli, Libya
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Spouse	Bulent Ali Riza (divorced)
Parents	Khalid Alwalid Algargany

Shaha Riza, (Arabic: شاها علي رضا‎) (born 1953 or 1954), is a World Bank employee currently on external assignment at the Foundation for the Future, a "semi-independent foundation to promote democracy" in the Middle East and North Africa. She is the girlfriend of Paul Wolfowitz.

As of July 2008, Riza earned $180,000 salary after taxes and telecommutes from home.

Early life

Riza was born in Tripoli, Libya, to a Libyan-Turkish father (Khalid Alwalid Algargany) and Syrian-Saudi mother. According to the Washington Post she grew up in Libya and attended Catholic boarding schools in England and on the island of Malta. She is a British national.

In the late 80s, Riza moved to the United States after her marriage to Bulent Ali Riza (also spelled Bülent Alirıza), (born 1952). 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, Turkish, English, French and Italian. She is divorced and has one son. Her father was King Abdul Aziz's (of Saudi Arabia) consultant as well as Saud's and Faisal's.^{[citation needed]}

Work prior to World Bank

Riza specializes in the Middle East politics and economics and has carried out field research in a number of Arab countries. 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.

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.

She started at the World Bank as a consultant in July 1997 and became a full-time employee in 1999.

Work at World Bank

At the World Bank, she has 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 relinquished her job after Wolfowitz was hired as president.

In 2004, in Beirut, Riza organized a major conference of North African and Middle Eastern groups pushing freedom and reform after the fall of Hussein. Her view was that planting a democracy in Iraq would cause other regimes to become more democratic. "She was quite formidable because she almost single-handedly brought everyone together", recalled Chibli Mallat, a Lebanese law professor who also helped organize the initiative. "I would have never participated myself had it not been for my sense of her probity and professionalism, and indeed her vision."

Activism and views

Riza is an expert^{[citation needed]} on democratization efforts and believes that the Middle East should not be exempt from the wave of democratization that affected the world in the 1990s. She has organized conferences around this and related themes in the Middle East and the United States. According to Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L Stimson Center, a peace organization, "Shaha was a very early promoter of the idea that we should not exclude the Middle East from the process of democratic change." 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."^{[citation needed]}

At one point, she worked for the Iraq Foundation, which was a group of Iraqi exiles that supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. There, she earned the admiration of Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi dissident that the Bush Administration hoped would succeed the Iraqi dictatorship. Although Defense Department documents show that Wolfowitz helped send her to Iraq, allegations of impropriety have been dismissed by close analysts of the Middle East, who note that Riza's expertise would have made her a strong candidate for the job.

Controversy at World Bank

Riza came to prominence in 2007 after her partner, Paul Wolfowitz, was forced down for alleged improprieties in his handing of her pay increases as president of the World Bank. After a lengthy discussion with the Board of the World Bank, the Board "accepted" that Wolfowitz acted ethically and that critically referred to the role and procedures of the Ethics Committee. Wolfowitz resigned June 30.

Critics of the World Bank's decision noted its double-standard and "ad hoc" arbitrary nature. Two former managing directors, Shengman Zhang and Caio Koch-Weser, were allowed to have their spouses work at the World Bank without official comment. Riza herself pointed to the double standard, saying: “I could not understand at the time or now why I was being singled out for this treatment when the then managing director Shengman Zhang’s spouse . . . was working at the bank and before her . . . Caio Koch-Weser’s spouse, when he was managing director. Neither wife was asked to leave the institution.”

Riza, in her job at the World Bank did not require her to report to Wolfowitz, but he offered to sign a statement recusing himself of any involvement with her work upon his appointment. Ironically, that statement ultimately led to his own forced departure from the bank by creating the catalyst that led to his perceived conflict of interest. In 2005, the ethics committee rejected Wolfowitz's proposal and forced Riza to leave the World Bank altogether, forgoing a promotion for which she was highly recommended.

This was done despite bank staffing policy to the contrary. Rule 4.01, paragraph 5.2, states that spouses and registered domestic partners are barred from working in situations where "one supervises the other directly or indirectly", but informal relationships fall under rule 3.01, paragraph 4.02, which states that in such cases as Wolfowitz and Riza's relationship that the supervisor "shall be responsible for seeking a resolution of the conflict of interest."

Nonetheless, Riza 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.

In her defense, Riza noted as follows in a statement she released to The Wall Street Journal:

1. My professional status at the Bank predates the arrival of the new President. I began work in the Bank in 1997. 2. There is no Bank regulation or staff rule that required me to leave the Bank in order to resolve this situation. 3. I was not given a choice to stay and, against my personal preference and professional interests, I agreed to accept an external assignment in 2005 upon the insistence of the Ethics Committee. 4. Against Bank rules and the Agreement I signed with the Bank, the details of the assignment and my personnel file have been leaked to the press and staff. As you well know my salary and grade level are quite common for World Bank staff that have years of experience, background and education similar to mine. 5. The cumulative effect of the decision made in 2005 and the recent media circus over the issue have done significant harm to my career, my personal well-being, and my prospects to continue the work I love and where my expertise resides.

—Shaha Riza, Statement to World Bank ethics committee

Response to Wolfowitz and Riza controversy

Several prominent newspapers, among them The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal condemned the efforts to bring down both Wolfowitz and Riza. Christopher Hitchens described the campaign to remove Riza and Wolfowitz as a "character assassination" and stated that he was forced out due to conflicts between the U.S. and European bank employees.

Hitchens was critical of the larger media's handling of the trial. In particular, Hitchens noted what he called

" an amazing breach of ordinary media etiquette (where longstanding unmarried couples are routinely described as being "partners" or sometimes "companions"), this very reserved and private lady has been called—in reputable newspapers—not only a "mistress" but a "girlfriend." One really is compelled to ask whether there is any decency left.

Hitchens considered it one of the worst political smears he had seen in his time in Washington and considers the whole affair as a kind of payback for Wolfowitz's support of the Iraq war. Robert Holland, formerly U.S. Representative at the World Bank, maintains that Wolfowitz's resignation had nothing to do with Riza's promotion. Holland, who served on the bank's board of directors until 2006, defends Wolfowitz, saying at the time that even if a hypothetical majority of the bank career staff disapproved of Wolfowitz's performance, "he's probably doing a lot of the right things." Holland thinks Wolfowitz unpopularity owes much to a "political bias against him and a defense of the culture and the status quo."

Meanwhile, Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian academic and diplomat, in an open letter to the Washington Post, condemned the "unfair and vicious campaign against her." She was similarly defended by civil rights activist-turned congressman, Andrew Young, who described Riza as "a British Muslim woman who is an admired World Bank professional and a champion of human rights in the Muslim world."

Even Wolfowitz ex-wife, Clare Selgin Wolfowitz, praised Riza's work, saying, "Shaha Riza is a dedicated and serious reform advocate who has my respect. I hope she will be able to continue her work in spite of everything."

Former Supreme Cour Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who serves as a board member at the Foundation for the Future, the organization that employs Riza, describes Riza as "a very competent person and knows the region well." O'Connor specifically praised Riza's involvement in pro-democracy projects in Morocco and Lebanon, citing her knowledge of Arabic as "extremely helpful."

For her part, Riza kept her silence, though she did remark that her life and her career "were torn asunder" by arbitrary World Bank policies. In a statement, she pointed to the "irony of my working to ensure women's participation and rights through the work of the World Bank and to be then stripped of my own rights by this same institution."

According to the Washington Post, Riza's friends encouraged her to speak up in her own defense, but she refused. Says one friend who requested anonymity thanks to the sensitive nature of the attacks against her.

"What would you expect? How would you like to be portrayed as somebody's bimbo when you're a highly educated person who has actually worked hard to make life better for women and civil society in the Middle East and has actually achieved a lot."

Wolfowitz World Bank resolution

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 allegedly 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. He also noted that there was, in fact, no World Bank rule governing informal relationships. To compensate Riza for the disruption caused by the Wolfowitz ethics panel, the committee advised an in situ promotion.

Riza's work was highly esteemed within the organization and she was shortlisted for a promotion. The ethics committee suggested that in light of forcing her on assignment she was to be granted "as part of a settlement of claims" an upgrade in job assignment and "an ad hoc salary increase. On July 27, the committee's chairman Ad Melkert sent a memo to Wolfowitz guaranteeing that "the potential disruption of the staff member's career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record."

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 calls 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.

On April 12, 2007, Wolfowitz apologized for what he called a "mistake", but would not 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 [the Board's] deliberations. I will accept any remedies they propose."

On April 17, 2007, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed that characterized the scandal as a witch hunt. Although Wolfowitz had had a prior friendly relationship with staff on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page and often published guest op-eds in the past, others questioned the story, 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. He currently works for a conservative think tank, AEI.

Autobiography and publication list

• Worldbank Group Staff Connections 2005 (PDF)
• Worldbank Group Communications

External links

• Articles, publications and reports (items not related to Wolfowitz matter)
• "For Shaha Riza, a Feminist Fight", by Mary Lu Carnevale, The Wall Street Journal’s Capital Bureau, April 30, 2007.
• Transcript of appearance on The McLaughlin Group talk show, 24 July 2002
• World Bank photo of Shaha Riza
• Will a British divorcee cost 'Wolfie' his job? Sharon Churcher and Annette Witheridge, Mail on Sunday, 20 March 2005
• What Will the Neighbors Say? Wolfowitz Romance Stirs Gossip Richard Leiby, Washington Post, 22 March 2005
• Pressure grows on World Bank Boss BBC News, 13 April 2007
• The Purging of Paul Wolfowitz: An absurd non-scandal might cost the World Bank president his job Michael Weiss, Jewcy, May 9, 2007
• Worldbankpresident.org blog on the Wolfowitz affair
• A Brave Woman Scorned Christopher Hitchens, Slate, May 14, 2007