Powell Resigns In Cabinet Shakeup

In a major shakeup of President Bush's second-term team, Secretary of State Colin Powell and three other Cabinet members have submitted their resignations, a senior administration official said Monday.

Besides Powell, Agriculture Secretary Ann Venneman, Education Secretary Rod Paige and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham are also stepping down.

The latest resignations bring to six – out of 15 – the number of Cabinet members who have decided to leave. Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans announced their resignations.

Mr. Bush already has chosen White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to succeed Ashcroft.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller reports Powell informed his senior staff Monday morning that he would be resigning, but Powell made clear he would stay on the job until a successor is ready to take over.

Powell's resignation comes as no surprise. Since August of last year, there's been very public speculation that he would not serve beyond a first term.

The White House was preparing an announcement to confirm Powell's resignation. According to one official, Powell expects that his departure date will be sometime in January. It was not immediately clear whether he will leave before Mr. Bush's second inauguration on Jan 20.

White House sources say it is "likely" Condoleezza Rice will become the next secretary of state, reports CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts.

The leading candidate to replace Paige, meanwhile, is Margaret Spellings, Mr. Bush's domestic policy adviser who helped shape his school agenda when he was the Texas governor.

Paige, 71, the nation's seventh education secretary, is the first black person to serve in the job. He grew up in segregated Mississippi and built a career on a belief that education equalizes opportunity, moving from college dean and school superintendent to education chief.

The daughter of a California peach grower, Veneman, 55, was the nation's first woman agriculture secretary. Speculation on a potential replacement has centered on Chuck Conner, White House farm adviser, Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas, who lost his seat in the Nov. 2 elections, Allen Johnson, the chief U.S. negotiator on agricultural issues and Bill Hawks, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

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. He struggled in an attempt to get Congress to endorse the Bush administration's broad energy agenda and was unable to convince Congress to enact energy legislation.

Powell, 67, has had a controversial tenure in the chief of state's job, reportedly differing on some key issues at various junctures with Secretary of State Donald H. Rumsfeld. Powell, however, has generally had good relations with his counterparts around the world, although his image standing has been strained by the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Powell, a former chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, led the Bush administration argument at the United Nations for a military attack to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, arguing a weapons-of-mass-destruction threat that the administration could never buttress.

Powell submitted his letter of resignation to the president on Friday. He will go about his usual schedule and will continue at full speed until a successor is named and in place, a senior administration said.

Powell was scheduled to meet later Monday with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and was to attend a meeting of Asian in Chile Wednesday and a mutinational conference on Iraq next week.

He told some two-dozen staff members of his projected departure at the start of the day.

Iraq has dominated Powell's attention during his nearly four years as secretary of state. Powell will perhaps be best remembered for that U.N. Security Council appearance on Feb. 5, 2003, during which he argued that Saddam must be removed because of he possessed possession of weapons of mass destruction.

There is no evidence that those claims had any foundation. Powell has maintained all along that the use of force of by the American coalition in Iraq was justified.