- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary
of State Colin Powell, widely respected in a world often wary of America's
superpower diplomacy, resigned on Monday and national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice was set to replace him.
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- Powell, viewed as a moderate in the right-wing Republican
administration, is the top official to quit since President Bush's re-election,
and was one of four Cabinet resignations announced by the White House on
Monday.
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- Rice, one of Bush's closest confidants who has generally
sided with hard-liners in the administration, will be nominated to replace
him and the announcement could come as early as Tuesday, senior administration
officials said.
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- Bush also planned to name Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley,
to take her job, they said.
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- Rice, national security adviser since Bush took office
in January 2001, has spent more time with the president than any other
of his top aides except White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. She was
at his side at all times in the run-up to the Iraq war.
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- The change at the head of U.S. diplomacy comes as Washington
makes a new push for Middle East peace following last week's death of Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat.
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- Powell, who is expected to stay on the job until mid-January,
will make a trip to the region this month to possibly meet Palestinian
leaders.
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- Rice met Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie in Berlin
in May in what was the highest-level U.S. contact with Qurie at the time.
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- Rice's training was in Russian affairs, but in her current
job she has focused on all the world's hot spots.
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- 'GREAT PATRIOT'
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- As praise poured in from around the world for Powell,
a retired four-star general who was the first black to be chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state, he said he always planned
to serve for just one term.
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- "Colin Powell is one of the great public servants
of our time. He is a soldier, a diplomat, a civic leader, a statesman,
and a great patriot," Bush said in a statement. "I value his
friendship. He will be missed."
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- In a typical transition for a new presidential term,
the White House also announced the resignations of Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Education Secretary Rod
Paige. Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary
Donald Evans quit.
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- Powell was the most popular Cabinet member among Americans
and resisted calls in the mid-1990s to run for president.
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- But last year, he tainted his reputation when at a presentation
at the United Nations he used flawed evidence over weapons of mass destruction
to make Bush's case for a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.
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- Although the United States had sharp differences with
the United Nations, particularly over Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
had a close relationship with Powell and said on Monday he valued the secretary's
wise counsel and objective approach.
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- Powell failed as the top U.S. diplomat to build a large
international coalition for the war that sparked anti-American anger around
the world and strained traditionally strong alliances, notably in Europe.
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- A veteran of Washington's bureaucratic warfare, Powell
had a silken touch with foreign leaders, U.S. lawmakers and the media.
But he found himself on the losing side of a number of Bush administration
battles -- notably the decision to go to war with Iraq without the U.N.
Security Council's blessing.
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- It was not clear if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
would keep his job, Republican sources said. One of Powell's main bureaucratic
rivals who is believed to want to stay on, Rumsfeld told reporters during
a trip in Ecuador he had not discussed his future with Bush.
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- STRONGER RIGHT-WING INFLUENCE?
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- Powell's resignation also came against the backdrop of
U.S. efforts to defeat an insurgency in Iraq before planned January elections
and to stop Iran and North Korea developing suspected nuclear weapons programs.
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- Powell's willingness to negotiate with North Korea and
to acquiesce in European talks with Iran has met resistance from administration
hard-liners.
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- Powell's close friend, Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage, is expected to leave with him.
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- Other senior State Department officials, such as planning
director Mitchel Reiss and Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, Powell's
point man in negotiations with North Korea, were also expected to leave,
sources said.
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- The departure of the moderates could deepen the right-wing
influence on the president.
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- But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Powell's
departure may not herald harsher U.S. foreign policy stances. "Everything
that Secretary Powell has done, he has done with the full authority of
the president," he said. (Additional reporting by Carol Giacomo, Steve
Holland and Adam Entous)
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- © Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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