When I first interviewed for my current position, I had to do so at Starbucks. This was not a fortuitous accommodation of my addiction to milky coffee, it was an acknowledgement that I was a risk, a threat until proven otherwise. Why was I so suspect? Well, for once, this had nothing to do with my pumpernickelish skin or brown subcontinental roots; I was risky business because I wasn’t cleared. And until I was, I would not be allowed more than five feet beyond the very beginning of a large lobby which contained a metal detector, an x-ray machine an imposingly high desk and several cameras. Five feet from the doors I had entered, that’s where I waited for almost 20 minutes, to meet the hiring manager who would sheepishly later ask if I minded conducting such an important interview at…Starbucks.
While I waited for aforementioned manager, my nerves invaded my stomach, from where it staged a coup attempt on the rest of my body. I felt like I was going to suddenly reacquaint myself (and everyone else in this very busy, very important lobby) with the protein shake I had chugged for breakfast. Horrified, I turned to one of the four guards and beseeched him to edify me regarding the location of the closest bathroom.
“Can’t do that, miss. You’re not allowed past this line.”
“But I think I’m going to be sick…”
“Yeah, you don’t look so good…hold on—Jay!”
“What’s goin on’…is she all right?”
“No. Do you think we can let her use the bathroom…”
“I don’t know man…she ain’t allowed back there-“
“But she’s going to get sick right here!”
“True, true…all right, just this once. Miss! Come with me.”
And with that I was escorted past two different checkpoints, down a hallway, to a door I have never been happier to see.
Once inside, I washed my hands. It’s a reflexive thing, in part because I’m a clean-freak, partially because I find the sound and texture of water soothing. I tried to be mindful, to focus on the bubbles and the hand-wringing and everything else, to distract myself from my hyper-anxious state. It was starting to work. I took deep breaths. I felt a bit better. I checked myself out in the mirror—I looked horrid. Well, might as well touch-up my makeup since I’m—
“MISS! PLEASE BE AWARE WE ARE ENTERING THE BATHROOM-“
“Damnit, where is Sadie? Oh, there she is…Sadie, you go in there, I hate goin in the women’s’ room!”
What on earth? And just then, the door exploded open and a very irate woman accosted me.
“What are you doing in here?”
“I…I was just putting on…lipgloss?”, I stammered.
“You are NOT even allowed to be back here.”
“Oh, well, I thought I was going to puke, so—“
“I am aware of the situation! You have taken too long—if you were going to get sick, it would’ve happened already.”
“I…I’m sorry?“
She grabbed my elbow and brusquely escorted me back to the metal detector I had already gone through. Twice.
“You NEED to stay here.”
I was shocked at the dramatic overreaction to my use of the bathroom, and at the way I was getting glared at by all five security personnel. Then I remembered that since I was brown, I look like a terrorist, so I mentally threw my hands up in the air. And then I waited. Thankfully, it was only a few more minutes before my interview began. At Starbucks. Because I wasn’t allowed on my future worksite.
Because I wasn’t cleared.
That’s a big deal in Washington, whether or not someone has a security clearance. A very. Big. Deal.
Wolfowitz’s girlfriend problem: Not only did the World Bank president find his companion Shaha Ali Riza a cushy job in the State Department, but she received a security clearance — unprecedented for a foreign national.
Wolfowitz’s World Bank scandal over his girlfriend reveals many of the same qualities that created the wreckage he left in his wake in Iraq: grandiosity, cronyism, self-dealing and lying — followed by an energetic campaign to deflect accountability…
Superficially, Wolfowitz’s arrangement for his girlfriend of a job with a hefty increase in pay in violation of the ethics clauses of his contract and without informing the World Bank board might seem like an all-too-familiar story of a man seeking special favors for a romantic partner. Wolfowitz has tried to cast the scandal as a “painful personal dilemma,” as he described it in an April 12 e-mail to outraged employees of the World Bank, who have taken to calling the neoconservative’s girlfriend his “neoconcubine.” He was, he says, just attempting to “navigate in uncharted waters.” But the fall of Wolfowitz is the final act of a long drama — and love or even self-love may not be the whole subject.
Wolfowitz’s girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, is a Libyan, raised in Saudi Arabia, educated at Oxford, who now has British citizenship. She is divorced; he is separated. Their discreet relationship became a problem only when he ascended to the World Bank presidency. Riza had floated through the neoconservative network — working at the Free Iraq Foundation in the early 1990s and the National Endowment for Democracy — until landing a position in the Middle East and African department of the World Bank. The ethics provisions of Wolfowitz’s contract, however, stipulated that he could not maintain a sexual relationship with anyone over whom he had supervisory authority, even indirectly…
Riza was unhappy about leaving the sinecure at the World Bank. But in 2006 Wolfowitz made a series of calls to his friends that landed her a job at a new think tank called Foundation for the Future that is funded by the State Department. She was the sole employee, at least in the beginning. The World Bank continued to pay her salary, which was raised by $60,000 to $193,590 annually, more than the $183,500 paid to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and all of it tax-free. Moreover, Wolfowitz got the State Department to agree that the ratings of her performance would automatically be “outstanding.” Wolfowitz insisted on these terms himself and then misled the World Bank board about what he had done…
Riza, who is not a U.S. citizen, had to receive a security clearance in order to work at the State Department. Who intervened? It is not unusual to have British or French midlevel officers at the department on exchange programs, but they receive security clearances based on the clearances they already have with their host governments. Granting a foreign national who is detailed from an international organization a security clearance, however, is extraordinary, even unprecedented. So how could this clearance have been granted?
State Department officials familiar with the details of this matter confirmed to me that Shaha Ali Riza was detailed to the State Department and had unescorted access while working for Elizabeth Cheney. Access to the building requires a national security clearance or permanent escort by a person with such a clearance. But the State Department has no record of having issued a national security clearance to Riza.
State Department officials believe that Riza was issued such a clearance by the Defense Department after SAIC was forced by Wolfowitz and Feith to hire her. Then her clearance would have been recognized by the State Department through a credentials transmittal letter and Riza would have accessed the State Department on Pentagon credentials, using her Pentagon clearance to get a State Department building pass with a letter issued under instructions from Liz Cheney.
But State Department officials tell me that no such letter can be confirmed as received. And the officials stress that the department would never issue a clearance to a non-U.S. citizen as part of a contractual requisition. Issuing a national security clearance to a foreign national under instructions from a Pentagon official would constitute a violation of the executive orders governing clearances, they say.
Given these circumstances, the inspector general of the Defense Department should be ordered to investigate how Shaha Ali Riza was issued a Pentagon security clearance. And the inspector general of the State Department should investigate who ordered Riza’s building pass and whether there was a Pentagon credentials transmittal letter.
You think? No, I’m not bitter at all. Why would I be? I’m an American citizen with the sort of spotless record only ex-debate dorks who nerdily dream of future Senate campaigns have. Every day of high school and college, my Father barked at me to remember, “Kunju— one day you will be before a Senate confirmation committee! And they will ask you about your useless adolescent fun. And you will not be able to lie and you will be humiliated by your past! And then I will be humiliated! And I came to this country with EIGHT DOLLARS, EIGHT DOLLARS, so you think of that before you smoke the pot/sleep with any boys/go to the mall/or do anything else criminal! DON’T FUCK UP YOUR FUTURE.”
No pressure, Daddy. Yeesh.
But there was a wee bit of truth buried in all his screaming and frothing at the mouth. There are consequences to our choices. Then again, this was back in the day, y’all— when smoking marijuana DID seem like an act so naughty, it would end all political aspirations.
The point is, my record is like Outkast—so fresh and so clean. And it took me two months to get my clearance, after filling out more paperwork than I have ever had to before. After finger prints and thumb prints and palm prints. And a second set of all of the above. That was after everyone in my immediate family was investigated and people who had known me for a required number of years were interviewed about me, extensively. It took two months for an expedited process, during which I wasn’t even sure I would qualify, even though I am a born-American citizen. My little sister is an Active Duty military officer. I have already been investigated, as part of the requirements for her to work at a certain role. And I had to wait, unlike a certain foreign national who didn’t have to jump through such hurdles.
Stupid, silly me. Next time I’ll just sleep with Paul Wolfowitz. That way I won’t have to sit at home, agonizing over if I am going to get cleared and if so, when, when will that phone call come, because I couldn’t start a job I was so excited about until it did. Some people don’t have to worry about such things though. It’s good to be someone’s girlfriend, isn’t it?
