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Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman best known for "embedding" hundreds of reporters from around the world with US combat units during the Iraq war, has resigned for personal reasons, the Defense Department announced Monday. "She will be sorely missed," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a statement. He praised her as a "gifted communicator." "During her remarkable two years of service in the Department of Defense, she has developed countless new methods to tell the story of our fighting forces, and bring their courage, dedication and professionalism into sharp focus for all Americans," he said. The White House also paid tribute to Clarke. "Torie is great. Torie is wonderful at what she does. She served our country very well at times of very serious military activity, two wars," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "I can tell you this: the White House will miss her, I will miss her, the President will miss her. She served our nation well." Clarke's biggest innovation was to arrange for intensive on-the-spot coverage of the war in Iraq by embedding hundreds of reporters from US and international news organizations with a US-led invasion force. The experiment produced a crackling, sometimes chaotic journalistic record of a military campaign in real-time and on an unprecedented scale. Rumsfeld later said it was a gamble but agreed to do it after being persuaded that the virtues of American soldiers in combat would shine through the coverage. Clarke said she was leaving for personal reasons and did not elaborate. "I depart sadly, because this has been the best professional experience of my life. It has been a true honor working for the men and women of the US military." Clarke was the first woman to serve as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, although the distinction of being the Pentagon's first female chief spokesperson goes to Kathleen DeLaski, who served during the Clinton administration. Unlike most of her predecessors, she had no previous experience with the military and worked only briefly as a journalist. But she drew on long experience in politics, government and public relations to help Rumsfeld sell Americans on the need for military action, as well as a radical restructuring of the military, to deal with new threats like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. She had served as press secretary for former president George Bush's unsuccessful re-election bid in 1992, as a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative's Office, and as an aide to Senator John McCain. She was head of the Washington office of Hill and Knowlton, a leading lobbying and public relations firm, when Rumsfeld hired her as his press secretary. Rumsfeld aide Lawrence Di Rita will act as spokeswoman until a permanent replacement is confirmed, the Pentagon said. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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