Washington ? In the wake of violence, prisoner abuse and a host of other things gone wrong in Iraq, the pendulum of influence to make things right has swung back to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell’s State Department is now at the forefront, spearheading efforts to push a resolution crafted by the United States and Britain through the United Nations Security Council. The resolution provides for a formal transfer of authority to a sovereign interim Iraqi government on June 30.

President Bush’s decision to turn to Powell represents a reversal of fortune for someone many Washington insiders have regarded as the odd man out in the administration’s Iraq strategy.

Some experts believe that Powell’s heightened profile means there’s been a decline in the influence of neoconservatives in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the Pentagon, who saw the war as a chance to promote democracy, first in Iraq and then in the rest of the Middle East.

“Their influence has lessened, and it’s been noticeable in the last few months,” said Richard Stubbing, a Duke University public policy professor who worked in the Office of Management and Budget’s National Security Division during the Ford, Carter and Reagan presidencies.

“There’s been a reduced presence of (Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld and a re-emergence of Colin Powell. He tried in ’02 and ’03 to get his views in, and he didn’t win. Now he’s a key player again.”

“He (Powell) is the point man,” said Lawrence Korb, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning Washington policy research organization, and a former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan. “We haven’t heard from Rumsfeld or Cheney in a while. Powell is the face of the administration now.”

Powell’s rise, Korb and other analysts believe, is in large part due to the fall from favor of the administration’s neoconservatives and other hardliners after a spate of serious setbacks in Iraq. Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the Pentagon’s top official for policy, Douglas Feith, have been under fire for the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.

To add to that, backers of former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi in the Pentagon and Cheney’s office are having to deal with accusations that a member of Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress gave sensitive information to Iran about the U.S. occupation in Iraq. Iraqi police, supported by U.S. soldiers, raided Chalabi’s Baghdad residence on May 19.

State Department officials maintain that Powell’s increased profile reflects a natural shift in the Iraq war from bullets and bombs to diplomacy.

“It’s a natural segue,” said Peter Brookes, a national security analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “We’re moving to a transition on June 30th and we’re trying to get international support. It’s part of the president’s vision.”

Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, reports to Rumsfeld. But the CPA will cease to exist after the handover of power on June 30, and the State Department will take control of a large embassy in Baghdad.