US Attorney General John Ashcroft, a lightning rod of criticism by civil liberties groups for his anti-terror policies after the Sept. 11 attacks and who once even ordered the robing of two partially nude statues in his department, resigned on Thesday.

A leading candidate to replace Ashcroft is former Deputy Attorney General larry Thompson, who once ran' the department under Ashcroft and faithfully implemented his policies.

Others likely candidates were White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's election campaign chairman Marc Racicot and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Ashcroft, a devout Christian who once ordered two partially nude

statues covered up at the Justice Department so he would no longer be photographed in front of them, began what is expected to be a gradual Cabinet reshuffle ahead of Bush's second term on Jan. 20.

Ashcroft, who missed nearly a month of work earlier this year because of pancreatitis and surgery to remove his gallbladder, had long been a target of criticism by civil liberties groups and some Democrats in Congress over the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies adopted after the Sept. 11,2001, attacks.

Ashcroft defended the policies as necessary to prevent another attack and strongly supported a sweeping anti-terror law, the Patriot Act, that gave the government the power to tap phones, track Internet usage and cell phones and detain immigrants.

But in a major blow for Ashcroft,

on June 28 this year the US Supreme Court rejected the administration's position in a pair of rulings and said terror suspects could use the American judicial system to challenge their confinement.

A month before that, Ashcroft warned at a news conference that al Qaeda planned in the next few months to attack the United States. The attack never occurred, and Ashcroft was criticized for failing to give any details and for scaring people.

"The demands of justice are both rewarding and depleting," Ashcroft said in a handwritten resignation letter to Bush dated Nov. 2, the day the president was reelected. "I take great personal satisfaction in die record which has 7bfiert developed. The safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved"