WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush's point man for international counterterrorism policy has quit, the first resignation by a senior official to be made public since Bush's reelection, a U.S. official said on Friday.
Cofer Black, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism for the last two years, told his bosses of his decision well before the election, which Bush won campaigning as a strong leader in the war on terror.
"He informed the State Department a few weeks ago that the transition period after the election would be the right time for him to explore new professional opportunities," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told Reuters.
He plans to leave the government in a few weeks, added Ereli, who did not know what Black would move on to.
Black, a former CIA career official, helped carry out Bush's hard-line anti-terror policy and was often the public face of the war the president declared on terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In September this year, Black drew criticism from Democrats for suggesting that the mastermind of those attacks, Osama bin Laden, could be captured soon.
That followed a botched State Department report Black oversaw on terrorism around the world in 2003 that was used to argue the United States was winning the war on terror.
In June, the administration had to correct the report to more than double the count of people killed and injured by international terrorism.
But Black was leaving with the "enormous mutual respect" of his colleagues, Ereli said.
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