Bush's adviser leaving White House for Texas

Photo: Bush's adviser leaving White House for Texas

Karen Hughes, who was a longtime President George W. Bush's adviser from the close circle of Texas aides and was trying to improve the U.S. image abroad, will leave the government at the end of 2007.

Hughes said she plans to quit her job as undersecretary of state and return to Texas, although improving the world's view of the United States is a "long-term challenge" that will outlast her.

"This will take a number of years," Hughes said in an interview to announce her departure. She was informing her staff of her decision Wednesday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was announcing it.

Bush had picked Hughes two years ago to retool the way the United States sells its policies, ideals and views overseas. A former television reporter and media adviser, Hughes' focus has been to change the way the United States engages and responds to criticism or misinformation in the Muslim world.

"Negative events never help," Hughes said when asked how events like last month's shooting of Iraqi civilians by private U.S. security guards in Iraq affects the way the world sees the United States.

Heading the broad category of U.S. outreach known as public diplomacy, Hughes sent Arabic speakers to do four times as many interviews with Arabic media as in previous years and set up three rapid public relations response centers overseas to monitor and respond to the news. She nearly doubled the public diplomacy budget, to nearly $900 million (EUR622.9 million) annually, and sent U.S. sports stars Michelle Kwan and Cal Ripken abroad as unofficial diplomats.

Polls show no improvement in the world's view of the U.S. since Hughes took over. A Pew Research Center survey earlier said the unpopular Iraq war is a persistent drag on the U.S. image and has helped push favorable opinion of the United States in Muslim Indonesia, for instance, from 75 percent in 2000 to 30 percent last year.

Hughes' performance drew mixed reviews in the Muslim world. She got credit for hard work and frequent travel but was prone to gaffes such as vastly overstating Saddam Hussein's use of poison gas against his people before he was deposed by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Hughes said the Iraq war was usually the second issue that Muslims and Arabs raised with her, after the long-standing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Hughes said she advised Bush and Rice two years ago that U.S. help in ending the six-decade old fight over Israel would probably do more than anything else to improve the U.S. standing worldwide.

Hughes said she told Bush and Rice over the summer that she did not plan to stay through the end of Bush's term, which ends in January 2009. Rice, who has also worked for Bush since he was a presidential candidate eight years ago, has announced no plans to leave.

But other longtime advisers to Bush from his days as Texas governor to leave the administration in 2007 include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and political counselor Karl Rove.

This is Hughes' second departure. She was among Bush's closest confidantes during his first term before leaving the White House in 2002. She never fully left Bush's employ, serving as an offsite strategist and adviser until she returned to Washington to take the State Department job in 2005.

Hughes had been splitting her time between Texas and Washington.

She worked with Bush since the 1990s, first as director of communications while he was governor of Texas, from 1995 to 2000.