'Rumsfeld may quit by year-end'

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, unhappy with his "partially eclipsed status" in the new Bush administration, may leave office by the end of this year, a media report said today.

Referring to the "rumours" doing the rounds "for weeks", the US magazine Newsweek claimed that among those eyeing Rumsfeld's post was recently retired Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Armitage had decided not to return to his old consulting firm, Armitage Associates, but set-up a new one, Armitage International, so that he could avoid conflict-of-interest problems, it said.

"It makes things easier from a number of angles if Mr. Armitage does go back to government soon," an Armitage associate, Kristin Burke, was quoted as saying.

The also report claimed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has

become a "wellspring" of fresh activity, building a "mini policy empire" that includes considerable sway over her old domain, the National Security Council.

"She calls early-morning meetings, late-night meetings," says one senior State official. "Then there are the Saturday meetings. This is her life."

Whereas President George Bush defined himself as "a war president" in his first term, now he can't get enough of his "new diplomacy," and Rice, who was come into spotlight after staying under the President's shadow for four years, is his chief instrument, it said.

The big decisions put on Rice's diplomatic track include Mideast talks; shaping nascent democracy in Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt; combining with the French to prod Syria out of Lebanon, and rejuvenating talks with Iran to force dismantlement of its nuclear programme.