WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States fought for World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to keep his job on Tuesday, saying he had made mistakes but should not be fired despite a bank finding that he broke rules in promoting his companion.

In what appeared to be a coordinated move to stave off European pressure for his dismissal, the administration said the former U.S. defense secretary and architect of the Iraq war had not committed a “firing offense.”

“We’ve made clear that we support Paul Wolfowitz,” White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters.

“Furthermore, he has said — and we agree — that certainly a lot of mistakes were made in the personnel process. But it’s not a firing offense,” he added.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed the White House’s comments, which came a day after a World Bank committee said he had violated ethics rules in the promotion and pay rise for his companion Shaha Riza, a Middle East expert.

“It seems to me that what happened there, as he said, he made some mistakes but it doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that you would want to see the dismissal of a World Bank president over,” Rice told reporters in Moscow.

Wolfowitz, whose neoconservative background and high-profile role in planning the Iraq war made him unpopular with many bank member countries, will make a last-ditch effort to hold on to his job when he appears before the bank’s 24-nation board later on Tuesday.

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