Fuming Over Bank Boss' Babe

THE brunette Tunisian girlfriend of former Pentagon honcho and current World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who's also her boss, isn't winning any friends there.

Sources tell investigative journalist Wayne Madsen that last year, after Wolfowitz left his post as Donald Rumsfeld's No. 2 and took over the powerful World Bank - which provides money and advice to Third World countries - he began dating Shaha Ali Riza, then acting manager for the bank's External Relations & Outreach for the Middle East and North Africa Region.

That didn't sit well with employees who complained of a conflict of interest. Ali Riza was transferred to a joint World Bank/U.S. Agency for International Development multinational investment project, Madsen reports. But charges of cronyism continued, and Wolfowitz next sent his gal pal to work on the bank's South American interests.

The sniping might be the result of Ali Riza's prickly personality. "[She] has managed to antagonize every office in Washington, D.C., in which she has been specially assigned by her boyfriend and boss," Madsen writes on his waynemadsenreports.com blog, citing World Bank sources. "[She] honed her neo-conservative credentials as a veteran of Ronald Reagan's National Endowment for Democracy, and she has been pressuring Wolfowitz to use his position to help 'democratize' the Middle East."

Ali Riza is divorced from Bulent Ali Riza, a Turkish Cypriot she met at the London School of Economics. Born in Tunisia with Jewish roots, she grew up in Saudi Arabia and is a British citizen.

Wolfowitz is legally separated from Clare Selgin, an expert on Indonesian anthropology. They've lived apart since 2001, when, according to published reports, he had an affair with an employee at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he was dean for seven years. At the time, according to published reports, Selgin was so upset by rumors of the affair, she wrote to then President-elect Bush, saying it could pose a "national security risk."

Wolfowitz's reps did not return Page Six's call or e-mails

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