Tough newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi is a woman on a mission. Pelosi, 67, assumed office on January 4, making her the first female speaker in U.S. history, number three in the constitutional line of succession behind the president and the vice president.

After losing control of the U.S. Congress following midterm elections last year largely due to voter dissatisfaction with White House's Iraqi policy, President George W. Bush and the Republicans have fallen on hard times.

Speaking to CBS, Pelosi urged Bush to justify his new strategy of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, indicating that the Congress may refuse to approve additional funding for this purpose. "This is new for him [Bush] because up until now the Republican Congress has given a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions, and we have gone into this situation, which is a war without end, which the American people have rejected," she said.

A constant thorn in the side of the Republicans, Pelosi successfully forced Bush into making a final decision to sack his former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

At the inauguration ceremony of her new appointment, she pledged to steer the nation in a "new direction" for all Americans by making changes in Iraq and through anti-corruption campaigns within Congress.

The long-awaited victory for Democrats in the Congress allows Pelosi to start a new round of legislation through the "100 hours" plan, which requires stringent budgets of the White House to avoid huge deficits, a wage raise for workers, expansion of federal support for stem cell research and reduction of costs for medical care.

Quick and efficient as Pelosi is, the realization of her blueprint will be tough because the majority of Democrats in Congress are not sufficiently united and because of the veto held by the presidency against any bill proposed by the Democratic-led Congress.