Kevin Kellems, who previously worked as spokesman for Vice President Cheney and then became a senior adviser to Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, has announced he is resigning his position.
He is the first to fall in Wolfowitz’s camp after the turmoil triggered by allegations of nepotism and mismanagement by Wolfowitz at the Bank. These allegations are not new on the whole and have been revitalized after revelations that Wolfowitz arranged abnormally large, automatic pay raises for his girlfriend.
A special committee established by the World Bank Board has concluded formally that Wolfowitz broke World Bank rules.
Kellems allegedly conducted hard-hitting crusades inside the Bank aimed at staffers not deemed loyal enough to Wolfowitz’s leadership. Many in the Bank who have remained neutral on whether Wolfowitz should stay or go have confided to this blogger that much of the Wolfowitz-Riza scandal is a proxy war for other serious misjudgments by the former Deputy Secretary of Defense and key architect of the Iraq War.
Several key journalists tell me that Thursday and Friday will be the next key dates in determining whether Wolfowitz stays in some crippled condition at the Bank, or departs.
— Steve Clemons
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