NEWS AND VIEWS

"President George W Bush has nominated US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as the next head of the World Bank, a key development agency.
Mr Wolfowitz has earned a reputation as a hawk during his time as Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's deputy, and was a strong advocate of the Iraq war.
Mr Wolfowitz said he was looking forward to being part of the Bank's 'noble mission'.
The choice of the hardliner to run the agency is likely to be controversial.
But President Bush described Mr Wolfowitz as a 'compassionate, decent man' committed to global development.

Opposing views

Jeffrey Sachs, a leading development economist, called the nomination 'inappropriate'.
'He is a man without international development experience, without professional qualifications.
'He is not a banker or an economist, not a public health specialist, a water management specialist, an agronomist, a climate change specialist.
'He is a defence specialist and so if this were the World Defence Council it would make sense,' Mr Sachs told journalists in a conference call.
But Allan Meltzer, a long-time critic of the World Bank, praised the nomination.
He pointed to Mr Wolfowitz's posting as US ambassador to Indonesia and experience managing large organisations as qualifications.
'We don't need a development person, there are plenty of people at the bank who do that,' Mr Meltzer told the BBC News website.
'What the Bank needs is focus: how many children are innoculated against measles every year? What have we done to bring water to the villages?
'Those are not development questions, those are administrative questions,' he said."

A BBC Reader's View:
"The 'Wolf' has been shown the path to the henhouse. It's hard to imagine peaceful development under his leadership."
Kelly, Washington, US

PNAC's vision is detailed in its September 2000 report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." Among other suggestions, this report calls for the United States to:

• Withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, stop the reduction of nuclear missiles, develop new nuclear weapons, and deploy a national missile defense system.
• Increase defense spending to a minimum 3.8 percent of gross domestic product (up from the 3 percent spent at the time of the report).
• "Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars" as a "core mission."
• Warns that "we cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states to undermine American leadership," and American military preeminence rests on the ability to "[remove] a dangerous and hostile regime when necessary."
• Keep all peacekeeping and rebuilding missions within the power of American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.
• Use key allies, such as the U.K., as the "most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership."
• Take military control of the Persian Gulf region through the establishment of permanent bases.
• Take control of cyberspace, otherwise "[America] will find it difficult to exert global political leadership."

# posted by R @ 4:37 PM