US Transportation Secretary Mineta resign

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, the only Democrat in Republican President George W. Bush's Cabinet and one of its three remaining original members, will step down July 7.

Photo: US Transportation Secretary Mineta resign

Mineta, the son of Japanese immigrants, oversaw the huge transportation security buildup after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He had been plagued at times by back problems and spent months working from home and the hospital. But he has since recovered.

He is "moving on to pursue other challenges," his spokesman, Robert Johnson, said Friday.

White House press secretary Tony Snow announced the resignation. Asked why Mineta, 74, decided to leave, Snow said: "Because he wanted to."

"He was not being pushed out," Snow said. "As a matter of fact, the president and the vice president and others were happy with him. He put in five and half years that's enough time."

Mineta's career has been a series of firsts for Asian-Americans: first to serve as a Cabinet secretary when former Democratic President Bill Clinton appointed him in 2000; first to serve as mayor of a major city his native San Jose, California, where the airport bears his name; and first to chair a congressional committee, the House Transportation Committee.

One of Mineta's signature accomplishments in the House was passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, through which the United States apologized for sending Mineta and 120,000 other Japanese-Americans to internment camps and paid reparations of $20,000 (at the time Ђ16,000) to each survivor.

Mineta was 10 when he was herded to a camp in the northwestern state of Wyoming with his family after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Snow credited Mineta with establishing the Transportation Security Administration, cutting regulations and red tape to liberalize the commercial aviation market, helping shape the legislation that finances the nation's highways, and injecting "sound economic principles" into the nation's passenger rail system.

Mineta joined Bush's Cabinet on Jan. 25, 2001, and became Transportation's longest-serving secretary. Bush's only other two original Cabinet members still serving are Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

There had been speculation for years that Mineta was on the verge of resigning, sometimes because of his health and sometimes because of Cabinet shake-ups.

After terrorists hijacked airplanes for the Sept. 11 attacks, Mineta oversaw the creation of the TSA, which put thousands of air marshals on commercial flights, installed high-tech equipment to check baggage at airports and hired tens of thousands of workers to screen air travelers and their baggage, reports AP.

O.Ch.