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WASHINGTON - US President George W Bush has chosen Robert Zoellick, a former US trade representative, as the new president of the World Bank to replace Paul Wolfowitz, a senior US official said today.
Bush plans to announce his selection on Wednesday and expects the bank's board to accept it, the administration official said.
Bush had said he wanted an American to succeed Wolfowitz, despite increasing calls from World Bank member countries and some US lawmakers to throw the process open to a global pool of candidates.
The controversy over Wolfowitz's authorisation of a hefty raise for his companion, Middle East expert Shaha Riza, deepened rifts among bank staff already discontented over his anti-corruption agenda and prompted sharp criticism from shareholder countries.
Wolfowitz also was controversial because of his role as a key architect of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq while serving in Bush's Defence Department.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson received "positive reactions" from other countries to the choice of Zoellick, the administration official told reporters.
Zoellick left his job as deputy secretary of state last year to join Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co.
He had been tipped as a candidate last year to become Treasury Secretary, but that job went to then-Goldman Sachs chief executive Paulson instead.
As Bush's first trade representative, Zoellick helped launch the Doha round of world trade talks and completed negotiations to bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organisation. He continued a major focus on China as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top deputy.
Zoellick was one of 18 mostly conservative figures, including former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who wrote a much publicized letter to former President Bill Clinton in 1998 advocating removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
Soon after that he was chosen as a member of the co-called "Vulcans" -- about half a dozen senior level officials, mostly from President George HW Bush's administration -- brought together under Rice to advise candidate George W Bush on foreign policy before his 2000 presidential election.
Zoellick's experience in finance and diplomacy "make him uniquely prepared to take on this challenge," the administration official said.
"He has the trust and respect of many officials around the world and believes deeply in the World Bank's mission of tackling poverty," the official added.
Paulson, who spearheaded the effort to find Wolfowitz's successor and had been charged with recommending a nominee to Bush, sounded out other member countries before making a recommendation.
Bush made the final decision on Zoellick over the weekend, the administration official said.
Asked whether the World Bank board would approve of Zoellick, the official said, "We have every confidence in that."
The United States has traditionally selected the head of the World Bank -- a convention started when the institution was founded 60 years ago -- while Europe has chosen the head of its sister organisation, the International Monetary Fund.
In addition to a growing number of countries that wanted a global search for the next bank president, four US House of Representatives committee chairmen last week also urged an open search, saying the best nominee "could come from anywhere".
Facts about World Bank nominee Zoellick
* The 53-year-old Zoellick has advanced his career in and out government over the past two decades. He is currently a managing director at Goldman Sachs investment bank and a vice chairman handling international issues.
* Zoellick served as Bush's first US Trade Representative beginning in 2001. He played a key role in helping launch the Doha round of world trade talks, one month after the Sept. 2001 attacks on the United States.
* The Harvard law school graduate advised Bush on trade and foreign policy issues during the 2000 presidential campaign and spent weeks in Tallahassee, Florida as part of the team to ensure that Bush won the controversial election.
* Zoellick's government career has benefited from his ties to the Bush family. He worked in President George HW Bush's White House as a deputy chief of staff and under James Baker, the former secretary of state, who was Bush's lead strategist overseeing the Florida vote recount.
* Zoellick was also one of the "Vulcans," a group of neoconservative policy planners that included Wolfowitz, who advised the younger Bush, then governor of Texas, prepare for the 2000 debates in his run for the presidency.
* As trade representative, Zoellick concluded free trade deals with Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco and Central American countries but was unable to finish world trade talks and negotiations on a Western Hemisphere free trade zone by a January 1, 2005 deadline for both negotiations.
* Zoellick gave up his cabinet level office at USTR to become deputy secretary of State under Condoleezza Rice at the start of Bush's second term in 2005. There, he led US efforts on Darfur and the administration's strategy of engaging China as a "responsible stakeholder" in world economic affairs.
* Zoellick helped devise US foreign policy during a momentous period in the late 1980s and early 1990s that included the fall of communism. He won the State Department's highest award for helping develop the "two plus four" negotiations that led to German reunification.
- REUTERS
