By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell, the retired four-star general who often clashed with more hawkish members of the administration on Iraq  and other foreign policy issues, resigned in a Cabinet exodus that promises a starkly different look to President Bush's second-term team.

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National security adviser Condoleezza Rice was most likely to succeed Powell, senior administration officials said.

The White House on Monday announced Powell's plan to depart along with the resignations of Education Secretary Rod Paige, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

Combined with the resignations earlier this month of Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Attorney General John Ashcroft, six of Bush's 15 Cabinet members will not be part of the president's second term, which begins with his inauguration Jan. 20. An administration that experienced few changes over the last four years suddenly hit a high-water mark for overhaul.

Known for his moderate views and unblemished reputation, it was Powell who went before the United Nations in February 2003 to sell Bush's argument for invading Iraq to skeptics abroad and at home. But Powell's case was built on faulty intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Still, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman remained the most popular member of the administration, more so than even Bush.

In a resignation letter dated Nov. 12, Powell told Bush that, with the election over, it was time to "step down ... and return to private life." The Army man for 35 years said he would stay on "for a number of weeks, or a month or two" until his replacement was confirmed by the Senate.

Asked what he plans to do next, the 67-year-old Powell said, "I don't know."

In a statement, Bush called Powell "one of the great public servants of our time."

Most of the speculation on a successor to Powell has centered on Rice, who is generally seen as more hawkish and is one of Bush's closest advisers. She is widely considered the president's first choice for the top diplomat job despite reports that she intends to return to California — she was provost at Stanford University — or was hoping to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

Aides to Rice declined to comment. In Ecuador for a meeting of defense ministers, Rumsfeld gave no indication that he is on the verge of stepping down. "I have not discussed that with the president," he said when asked if he planned to resign.

Also mentioned as a possible Powell replacement was U.N. Ambassador John Danforth, the former Republican senator from Missouri. Danforth described Powell as "a great person" and "an outstanding public servant." As to whether he might succeed Powell, Danforth said, "It hasn't been mentioned by me or to me."

Powell, one of the architects of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in the administration of Bush's father, often sparred in private with hard-line administration officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld over how to proceed in Iraq and the role of the international community.

In his most memorable presentation, Powell soldiered on and delivered the administration line before the United Nations and a world audience on the rationale for ousting Saddam Hussein.

"Secretary Powell's departure is a loss to the moderate internationalist voices in the Bush administration," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration. "Hopefully, his replacement will be a pragmatist rather than an ideologue."

The resignations come as Bush faces major challenges on both the foreign policy and domestic fronts. Internationally, the threat of terrorism looms, the fighting in Iraq continues with upcoming January elections in doubt and the Middle East landscape has shifted with the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

On the home front, Bush has called for ambitious second-term legislative priorities, including overhauling the tax code and Social Security.

Paige, 71, the nation's seventh education secretary, is the first black person to serve in the job in which he oversaw Bush's signature education law, the No Child Left Behind Act. The leading candidate to replace Paige is Margaret Spellings, Bush's domestic policy adviser who helped shape his school agenda when he was the Texas governor.

Abraham, 52, a former senator from Michigan, joined the administration after he lost a bid for re-election, becoming the nation's 10th energy secretary. Abraham struggled to persuade Congress to endorse the president's broad energy agenda.

Sources said that Abraham intends to stay in Washington, where he plans to work in private law practice.

Veneman, 55, the daughter of a California peach grower, was the nation's first woman agriculture secretary. Speculation on a potential replacement has centered on Chuck Conner, White House farm adviser; Allen Johnson, the chief U.S. negotiator on agricultural issues; Bill Hawks, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, and Charles Kruse, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation.

Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, who lost his bid for re-election, said he was flattered that his name had been mentioned as a possible Veneman successor, but he has "not been contacted by anyone that counts."

In an appearance at the daily State Department midday briefing, Powell said he had a full end-of-year agenda. The most popular member of Bush's Cabinet in international circles, he was often viewed as a voice of moderation in an administration that many foreign leaders, particularly in Europe, regarded as too willing to work unilaterally.

Powell's resignation drew expressions of praise and regret overseas.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair described Powell as "a remarkable man and ... a good friend to this country over a very long period." German Defense Minister Peter Struck called Powell's retirement "regrettable" and described him as "a reliable partner in conversation in the area of defense policy."

In his resignation letter, Powell said, "I am pleased to have been part of a team that launched the global war against terror, liberated the Afghan and Iraqi people, brought the attention of the world to the problem of proliferation, reaffirmed our alliances, adjusted to the post-Cold War world and undertook major initiatives to deal with the problem of poverty and disease in the developing world."

The resignations are on a par with what other presidents who have won second terms have experienced.

In 1984, President Reagan named a new attorney general and new Treasury, Interior, Labor, Energy, Education and Health and Human Services secretaries . In 1996, President Clinton tapped new secretaries at State and Defense as well as Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said none of those who are resigning would leave before successors were chosen.

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By Terence Hunt / Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft, a favorite of conservatives, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans, one of President Bush's closest friends, resigned Tuesday, the first members of the Cabinet to leave as Bush heads from re-election into his second term.

Both Ashcroft and Evans have served in Bush's Cabinet from the start of the administration.

Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

"Yet I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration," said Ashcroft, whose health problems earlier this year resulted in removal of his gall bladder.

"I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons," he said. Ashcroft's letter was dated Nov. 2, Election Day.

Evans, a longtime friend from Texas, wrote Bush, "While the promise of your second term shines bright, I have concluded with deep regret that it is time for me to return home."

Bush issued statements of praise for both men — and for the policies they advanced.

"John Ashcroft has worked tirelessly to help make our country safer," the president said. "John has served our nation with honor, distinction, and integrity."

Bush's farewell to Evans was more effusive and more personal, fitting to their more than three decades of friendship dating to the oil business in Midland, Texas, where they would attend church together and meet every day for a three-mile jog.

"Don Evans is one of my most trusted friends and advisers," Bush said. "Don has worked to advance economic security and prosperity for all Americans. He has worked steadfastly to make sure America continues to be the best place in the world to do business."

Ashcroft, 62, has been well liked by many conservatives. At the same time, he has been a lightning rod for criticism of his handling of the U.S. end of the war against terror, especially the detention of terror suspects.

Evans, 58, was instrumental in Bush's 2000 campaign and came with him to Washington. Evans has told aides he was ready for a change. He was mentioned as a possible White House chief of staff in Bush's second term, but the president decided to keep Andy Card in that job.

One name being mentioned for Evans' job at Commerce is Mercer Reynolds, national finance chairman for the Bush campaign, who raised more than $260 million to get him re-elected.

Speculation about a successor to Ashcroft has centered on his former deputy, Larry Thompson, who recently took a job as general counsel at PepsiCo. If appointed, Thompson would be the nation's first black attorney general. Others prominently mentioned include Bush's 2004 campaign chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales.

Meanwhile, three high-ranking Bush administration officials said they would like to remain on the job. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Leavitt all said they want to continue.

Washington continued to buzz with speculation about the futures of Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Powell, en route to Mexico City, said late Monday he has an ambitious travel schedule in Europe in the weeks ahead in hopes of patching deep divisions stemming from the Iraq war. He gave no hint about his own plans beyond the early December meetings, although he is widely expected to leave his job at the end of Bush's term or early in the second term.

Powell has fenced with reporters who have asked if he will stay on the job, saying only that he serves at the pleasure of the president.

Senior aides to Rumsfeld say he would like to remain in the job for at least part of Bush's second term. Rumsfeld told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that he had not discussed it with Bush since the election, and he did not say whether he wanted to remain.

Rumsfeld ran through a list of Pentagon accomplishments during his tenure, prompting some at the White House to suggest that his remarks had a valedictory tone. But Pentagon aides discouraged the idea he was hinting at any intention to leave.

Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, is considered a possible successor for either Rumsfeld or Powell. She has let it be known that she does not want to remain in her current role in the second term, and officials say her path is up or out. Rice said a year ago she wasn't interested in getting enmeshed in the bureaucracy at the State Department, but aides don't rule that out now, particularly with prospects for change in the Middle East.

WASHINGTON - Odd things can happen when presidents no longer have to worry about re-election. George W. Bush embarks on another four years in the White House unleashed from election concerns for the first time in his presidency, raising questions about what he will do with the freedom of a second term.

Past presidents have often reached big in their second term, with some accomplishments that build on earlier ones and others that can appear to contradict them. Regardless, with their eyes trained away from the voting booth and toward the history books, many have taken the chance to gamble.

Take President Reagan, who made fighting communism the hallmark of his presidency and famously proclaimed the Soviet Union the "evil empire" two years into his first term. But in his second term, Reagan seized on the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev to power and — despite rhetoric that remained fiercely hawkish — became friends with the Soviet leader and worked with him to steer their nations away from nuclear confrontation.

By the end of his presidency, Reagan had signed a treaty with Gorbachev eliminating the entire class of medium-range nuclear-tipped missiles. The combination of toughness and conciliation helped end the Cold War.

Or take President Clinton ( - ), the Democrat elected in 1992 after embracing his party's centrist movement. He waited until the last year of his first term to utter one of the most famous quotes of his presidency — that "the era of big government is over" — and to tackle the historic welfare reform legislation that dismayed many in the left wing of his party. And then in his second term, he struggled for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians but failed to pull it off.

Possibilities for a second-term Bush exist in part because of circumstances, and in part because of the agenda he has already set.

Either way, there's no disputing at least two things: He'll have lots of extra time now that he no longer has to devote time to raising money and campaigning for re-election. It also won't be long before attention will turn to the 2008 presidential contest and he'll be considered a lame duck.

White House political adviser Karl Rove said Bush in his second term "absolutely" would push for a constitutional amendment that says marriage consists only of the union of a man and a woman.

Bush believes states can deal with the issue of civil unions between gay people, an arrangement that if enacted would grant same-sex partners most or all the rights available to married couples, Rove said Sunday.

In foreign policy, one obvious opportunity is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as Bush's second term collides with changes in the region. Israel has taken steps to withdraw from Gaza after nearly 40 years of occupation.

With Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ( - ) hospitalized and gravely ill, the man seen by Washington as an untrustworthy peace partner may be sidelined.

Those developments could give Bush a chance to risk trying to make peace, and White House aides have already begun signaling they see an opening.

Observers also see a legacy-building opportunity in Bush's proposal to increase Social Security ( - )'s long-term solvency by partially privatizing it. "He could really make his mark there," said Lee Edwards, an analyst of presidential decision-making at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

But to be successful on both those difficult fronts, Bush might have to curb the my-way-or-the-highway approach that has dominated his relations with Democrats in Congress and international allies, two groups whose help he will likely need.

"He's got political capital," said Princeton political scientist Fred Greenstein. "He'll have even more if he does some reaching out."

Greenstein suggested Bush may decided to do just that — fulfilling a promise he has made in the days since his successful re-election — by nominating "some kind of uniting figure" for any Supreme Court vacancy, instead of a conservative who would spark a bitter Senate confirmation fight.

However, experts noted there's been little indication from Bush that he plans to be anything other than the mostly unbending conservative of his first term. Since Election Day, he has promised to earn the trust of Democrats and talked of bipartisanship. But so far, that has mostly meant inviting Democrats to support his proposals and leaving them behind if they decline.

And in recent days, Bush has appeared, if anything, more emboldened than ever, political experts and presidential historians said. When asked to name his most immediate priorities, he raised an issue that is one of the most divisive flashpoints between the two parties — capping medical malpractice lawsuit awards.

"He talks the talk of conciliation, but he walks the walk of the solid conservative," said Allan J. Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. "I see no sign the president is going to modify his approach."