Wolfowitz Says He’s The Victim Of Smear Campaign

WASHINGTON, April 30 — Paul D. Wolfowitz declared vigorously today that it would be unjustly and frankly hypocritical for the World Banks board of directors to find him guilty of ethical lapses. But he also hinted that he would discuss whether to resign as bank president if the board clears him of misconduct.

Robert Bennett, Paul D. Wolfowitz’s attorney.

Appearing before a subcommittee of the board today and going on the attack after weeks of public silence, Mr. Wolfowitz also charged today that he had been the victim of orchestrated leaks of false, misleading, incomplete and personal information that were part of a conscious campaign to undermine my effectiveness as president.

The goal of this smear campaign, I believe, is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am an ineffective leader and must step down for that reason alone, even if the ethics charges are unwarranted, he said, adding that his resignation under such circumstances would send a terrible message, making an impossible situation for any successor.

I, for one, will not give in to such tactics, he said. And I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest.

The defiant response of the beleaguered bank president left unclear what would happen next.

The banks board was expected to deliberate later today and possibly into next week, but many bank officials speculated that the affair may yet end with some kind of declaration of good faith for Mr. Wolfowitz, as part of a deal in which he resigns.

Mr. Wolfowitzs defense was laid out in a seven-page statement released by the office of his lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, shortly after the bank president read it in a private session at the banks headquarters in Washington.

But though the statements tone was combative, the hint that he might be willing to consider a resignation suggested that Mr. Wolfowitz had been shaken by the growing number of officials in the bank and in the worlds finance ministries who have declared a loss of confidence in his leadership. The hint came after Mr. Wolfowitz demanded an exoneration.

Only when the cloud of these unfair and untrue charges is removed, will it be truly possible to determine objectively whether I can be an effective leader of the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz said at the end of his statement.

Demands that Mr. Wolfowitz resign have been precipitated in the last month by accusations that in 2005, when he arranged for a pay and promotion package for Shaha Ali Riza, his female companion and a bank employee of seven years, he violated bank rules against conflicts of interest.

But the demands for his ouster have also been fueled by many other issues, from disagreement with his demands for a tough crackdown on corruption in bank programs to his reliance as a manager on a small group of close aides who followed him to the bank from the Bush administration, where he served as deputy secretary of defense.

Critics also say that documents that came to light recently show that Mr. Wolfowitz or his aides used the bank to press Bush administration policies around the world, including opposition to contraceptives and abortion in family planning programs and skepticism about global warming. Mr. Wolfowitz has specifically denied these accusations.

Mr. Wolfowitzs statement, accompanied by a 17-page submission from his lawyers, Mr. Bennett and Amy Sabrin, constituted an extraordinary public rebuttal to accusations that have been roiling the bank and the circle of finance and development ministries in countries across the globe.

Meanwhile, President Bush reiterated his endorsement of Mr. Wolfowitz, though in a low-key way, saying at the White House that the embattled bank presidents situation had not come up in his conversations earlier with the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel.

My position is that he ought to stay, Mr. Bush said. He ought to be given a fair hearing. The comment appeared to be coordinated with Mr. Wolfowitzs strategy of insisting that the only fair process was one that would clear him.

German officials have said that Ms. Merkel thought Mr. Wolfowitz should resign, a view held by most leaders in the European Union; Germany holds the rotating presidency of the union through the end of June. But the officials said Ms. Merkel was loath to say so publicly in the face of the White Houses support for him.

Asked today about Mr. Wolfowitz at her joint appearance with Mr. Bush, Ms. Merkel said simply that she favored a transparent process to decide his fate.

Mr. Wolfowitzs defense was striking in that it singled out three longtime bank officials as having specifically ordered him to handle the matter of Ms. Riza himself in 2005, and that two of those officials, he said, later found that he had handled the situation properly.

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