White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested that the resignations were a mix of voluntary and involuntary. "The president has the right to make decisions about who makes up his team for a second term," he said.
Administration officials said Rumsfeld, the other most prominent member of Bush's war cabinet, will continue to run the Pentagon for the foreseeable future.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, with President Bush in 2002, met with the president and was not asked to stay, White House officials said.
(Kevin Lamarque -- Reuters)
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"The decision was made to keep Rumsfeld and drop Powell because if they would have kept Powell and let [the Rumsfeld team] go, that would have been tantamount to an acknowledgment of failure in Iraq and our policies there," one government official said, requesting anonymity to speak more candidly. "Powell is the expendable one."
Rumsfeld was asked during a news conference yesterday if he had submitted his resignation to Bush. "I haven't discussed that with him at all, in writing or orally," he said. Rumsfeld did not say whether he had discussed the matter with Cheney.
Powell has consistently shown up in polls as the administration's most popular figure. He was accorded movie-star treatment by mammoth crowds in 1995 during the book tour for his autobiography, "My American Journey." He kept his party affiliation secret during his military career, and both parties sought him as a presidential candidate. He finally said he was a Republican who supports affirmative action and abortion rights.
When Bush was Texas governor and running for president, his flirtations with Powell -- who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush during the Persian Gulf War -- bolstered his case that he could handle foreign policy. Powell was the first African American to become secretary of state, and Rice will be the first black woman in that office.
During his tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Powell was known for the Powell Doctrine, which called for the use of overwhelming force for a quick, clean victory and minimal cost in American lives. But as secretary, he was repeatedly outmaneuvered by the Pentagon and was never able to persuade the administration to adopt that approach in Iraq, or to accept the State Department's plans for post-invasion occupation in Iraq.
Powell brought together representatives of the United Nations, the European Union and Russia to design the "road map" for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but has not been able to persuade the White House to use the muscle necessary to implement it. Powell is also credited with improving U.S. relations with Russia and China, helping to persuade Libya to give up weapons of mass destruction, pushing the administration to increase its commitment to the international fight against AIDS, and promoting the administration's Millennium Fund, which linked U.S. aid to democratic reform.
Powell, 67, objected in private to the timing of the invasion of Iraq and to the way the United States prepared for it. But in what friends see as irony, one of the most memorable appearances of his tenure was his February 2003 presentation to the United Nations, televised live worldwide, in which he used satellite photos and other evidence -- some of it since discredited -- to make the case for using force against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Kenneth M. Duberstein, chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan and a friend of Powell's, said the secretary's decision "is about him getting his life back again."
"He wants to be able to tinker under the hood and go to hardware stores and eat rotisserie chicken, just like he used to," Duberstein said.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said in a statement lamenting Powell's resignation that he has "commanded international respect" and "leaves the State Department as still the most respected, most trusted, and most popular leader in America today."
Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.
