The relationship between Paul Wolfowitz and an Arab feminist that is threatening to bring the curtain down on his two-year presidency of the World Bank has always been scrutinised by those trying to understand one of the most controversial men in Washington.

When it was first disclosed in 2004 that Mr Wolfowitz and Shaha Ali Riza, an Oxford-educated Middle East expert, were dating, the news came as a shock to those who had tried to place one of the central architects of the Iraq war firmly in America's pro-Israel, military lobby.

Instead it became clear that Donald Rumsfeld's deputy in the Pentagon had found more in common with Ms Riza, a British citizen who grew up in Saudi Arabia and who, since the early 1990s, had worked in Washington with Iraqi dissidents and America's National Endowment for Democracy to try and bring about political reform in the Middle East.

When Mr Wolfowitz and Ms Riza, who are both divorced, became close, she was working in the Middle East and North Africa department of the World Bank where she was described as an expert on women's issues and a media contact for the bank's reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

The couple tried to keep their relationship quiet, rarely appearing at the same functions and only attending private parties together. But when Mr Wolfowitz was nominated by President Bush to be the next president of the World Bank in March 2005, Washington's rumour mill began to turn.

Neighbours in the predominantly Democratic neighbourhood near American University, where Ms Riza lives, complained to The Washington Post of late night visits from Mr Wolfowitz and his 24-hour security detail. "It's an international neighborhood and he's the icon for a fabulously expensive, tragic war. It's the one thing we talk about now," one told the newspaper.

Secrecy and conflicting rumour shrouded Ms Riza's job arrangements at the bank as soon as Mr Wolfowitz arrived. At first it was reported that the president had asked that she be allowed to stay but that they be kept out of each other's way. But when Ms Riza was promptly seconded to the State Department, the World Bank said her transfer had been in the offing for some time.

It was last month, when annual payroll data for the bank's employees -- some of the highest-paid public servants in the world -- was being compiled that the details of Ms Riza's transfer to the State Department, where she worked under Karen Hughes to improve America's image in the Middle East, were leaked.

The Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based whistleblower group, showed that Ms Riza not only received a hefty promotion in her last days at the World Bank but was given a raise described by the bank's staff association as "grossly out of line with" the rules. Ms Riza has seen her salary rise by more than $60,000 since her move to the State Department, where she is still paid by the bank and earns more than the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Critics of Mr Wolfowitz, whose appointment to the bank has been compared to the redemptive selection of Robert McNamara, the Defence Secretary who led America into the Vietnam War, have complained that the extraordinary treatment of Ms Riza reflects larger problems in his selection and treatment of staff.

During his presidency, Mr Wolfowitz has been criticised for marginalising long-standing bank officials and compromising the apolitical role of the bank by surrounding himself with aides closely identified with the Bush Administration. Among those who have attracted scrutiny are Kevin Kellems, a Pentagon official known as the "keeper of the comb" for his purported role in Mr Wolfowitz's infamous appearance in Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 911, where he was shown spitting on a comb before tidying his hair.

But more significantly, complaints of nepotism have clashed sharply with Mr Wolfowitz's oft-stated mission to bring good governance to the forefront of the bank's lending policies to the developing world. The campaign against corruption has been criticised by bank supporters, including the UK, for being vague and sparing problematic American allies, such as Tajikistan, while suspending aid to projects in places like India and Kenya. Last September, Mr Wolfowitz received an unprecedented rebuke from the bank's ruling development committee, which forced him to water down the proposals.

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