WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, frustrated by military hawks in the cabinet, plans to step down at the end of President George W. Bush's four-year term, news agencies reported.

"He will have done a yeoman’s job of contributing over the four years. But that’s enough," an aide close to Powell told the weekly Time news magazine Sunday, September 1, 2002.

As the aide told Time, Powell feels that "I did what my heart told me to do. I got (Bush) here and set him up. I did the best I could do."

According to the aide, only the imminence of a major diplomatic victory, in the Middle East, for example, could convince Powell to stay on - should Bush win a second term in 2004.

Powell is not himself angling for a shot at the presidency, the aide said.

At the same time, said the magazine, the loss of Powell would be a setback for the President's party, which would miss the former general's moderate voice which has served to broaden the base of Republican appeal.

Alone among Bush's top advisors, Powell has remained silent in recent weeks as the debate over a possible military strike on Iraq raged in Washington and in other world capitals.

While Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have come out with increasingly strident remarks about the need to oust Saddam Hussein, Powell kept his head down, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In his stead, State Department officials repeatedly tried to tamp down rising fears at home and abroad that Bush decided on military intervention without fully consulting U.S. and friends and allies.

However, the low-profile of Powell, considered the lone moderate in the Bush administration, has begun to be noticed and questioned by U.S. commentators on both sides of the political spectrum.

The hawks want to know if Powell - a retired general who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was reluctant to commit U.S. troops in the Gulf War and in the Balkans - agreed with what the rest of the Bush cabinet appears to be telling the President.

And the doves are wondering if Powell - seen by many of Washington's friends and allies abroad as essential to the credibility of Bush's foreign policy - has abandoned the fight for caution.

Powell last spoke publicly about Iraq on August 12, condemning Saddam's "criminal values" after a meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio.

He said then that he and other U.S. officials were meeting with members of the Iraqi opposition "to see what possibilities exist if and when a regime change takes place" for establishing a responsible government in Baghdad.

In a BBC interview three days later, Rice said the West had to take action against Saddam and said there was a "very powerful moral case" for ousting him because of his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and inclination to use them.

Her comments were followed by a stream of opposing voices, notably from former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who served under Bush's father, and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.

Rumsfeld then weighed in with his view that Saddam had to be ousted, followed by Cheney, who Monday, August 26, argued the case for military action, possibly pre-emptive.

Through it all, Powell said nothing. Whenever asked about Iraq or the Middle East conflict, Powell and other State Department officials would just say that “the two issues are now with the White House”.

Aides to Powell note that he openly favored regime change for Iraq even before he formally took office as Washington's top diplomat.

And they stress that he was on vacation when the debate began to boil last week, and deny that their boss has been silent on the matter in venues where his opinion counts most - the President's inner circle.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher grew increasingly irritated on Thursday when asked repeatedly by reporters if Powell was deliberately staying out of the argument.

"Three times I've said there is no relative silence from Powell, from the Secretary," he said. Boucher said that even while on holiday, Powell had been in regular touch with the President, his cabinet colleagues and foreign ministers.

"You can be assured that ... Secretary Powell is discussing all these things with them as we go forward," Boucher said.

The spokesman noted that since his return from vacation, Powell discussed Iraq in a series of interviews to international broadcasters about the upcoming anniversary of the September 11 attacks, but that those would not begin to be aired until the beginning of next week.

"He's expressed his view publicly, but for people who won't air it until early September," Boucher said.

Several reporters, who conducted those interviews said they had been told by the State Department that Powell's remarks could not to be aired until then.

Without an appearance by Powell himself, Boucher's explanations appear unlikely to satisfy either the hawks or the doves.

"Where is Colin Powell on a policy that's already been decided?" conservative writer Fred Barnes asked Wednesday on the Fox News Channel.

"Is Powell on board or not? Now, this is both a test of Powell and it's a test of the President."

The same question is being asked by liberals, concerned that Cheney and Rumsfeld may have taken over the conduct of U.S. diplomacy.

"Once upon a time, the secretary of state was in charge of US foreign policy," commentator William Stewart wrote this week. "In President George W. Bush's administration, however, it is not at all clear as to who's in charge."