Rice plans to name Wolfowitz to advisory panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Wolfowitz, forced to resign from the World Bank because of his role in obtaining a high-paying promotion for his companion, is slated to chair a U.S. State Department advisory panel on arms control, a U.S. official said on Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because of the appointment has not yet been made public, said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to name the former deputy defense secretary and an architect of the Iraq war to chair the International Security Advisory Board.

The board gives the State Department independent advice on arms control, disarmament, international security and other matters and its members include two former directors of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Wolfowitz was forced to resign as president of the World Bank this year after a bank panel found he broke several bank rules by involving himself in the promotion of his companion Shaha Riza, a Middle East expert at the bank.

The controversy sparked outrage among some of the bank's 10,000 employees and prompted senior staff to write to the board complaining that the leadership crisis had undermined their work, especially in fighting corruption.

The State Department had no immediate comment on the plan to name Wolfowitz to the board, which was reported earlier by Newsweek.com. Wolfowitz was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, editing by Eric Walsh)