WASHINGTON, Jan 4: Nancy Pelosi, a California liberal who helped engineer the Democratic takeover of the US Congress from President George Bush's Republicans, on Thursday became the first woman to lead the US House of Representatives.

Pelosi was chosen on a party-line vote of 233-202. The leader of the minority Democrats the past four years, she now is the highest ranking woman in the US government, second in the line of succession behind only the vice president to Bush.

According to agencies, in her speech Ms Pelosi said: “The election of 2006 was a call to change - not merely to change the control of Congress, but for a new direction for our country. Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in Iraq.”

“The American people rejected an open-ended obligation to a war without end,” she added.

Democrats campaigned on a vow to start a phased withdrawal of US troops.

The 110th US Congress convened on Thursday with Democrats for the first time in control of both the Senate and House of Representatives while a Republican still holds the White House.

One of the House’s initial votes was to elect Nancy Pelosi, a liberal California Democrat, as the first woman to lead the chamber as its speaker.

The first day of the new Congress was mostly taken up with ceremonial activities, including the swearing-in of the 535 House and Senate members.

Capitol hallways were jammed with lawmakers' relatives and friends. Former president Bill Clinton strolled through the Senate press gallery just before noon. "I came to apply for a job," he quipped.

The Democrats planned to introduce a 100-hour legislation in the new Congress -- a move aimed at seizing the initiative before President Bush delivers his State of the Union address later this month.