Oh the poor baby. They’re picking on him. Making stuff up! It’s always someone else’s fault with these guys. I’ve read this so many times with them I don’t know whether to puke or laugh.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz lashed back at critics on Monday who he said were conducting a smear campaign against him and vowed he would not resign.

In a statement to a bank panel looking into whether he broke ethical and other rules in a pay-and-promotion deal he directed for his girlfriend, Wolfowitz said treatment of the issue had become “circus like.”

“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,” Wolfowitz said.

“And, I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest,” he said in the statement.

The former deputy U.S. defense secretary, whose legacy as an architect of the Iraq war has dogged his tenure at the bank, did not rule out the possibility he may eventually step down, but made clear he would not be forced.

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