For his part, Powell said that he had delivered a clear message that terrorism and violence "has to stop," and that the U.S. vision of "two states living in peace" was "the only solution to this conflict."

"We made clear to the leaders in the region that we want to move forward with negotiations as early as possible, and we're looking at different ways to do that once security has been established," said Powell, linking peace negotiations closely to security concerns. Complete Text

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced major changes to the Unified Command Plan (UCP) that establishes the missions and responsibilities for the chiefs of U.S. military forces in every region of the world and two of the four branches of the armed services.