Dec. 14, 2000 3:05 p.m.

McLEAN, Va. (AP) _ The administration is shooting to have confirmations begin right after President-elect Bush is sworn into office Jan. 20.

"We're going to move as rapidly as we can," Cheney said after accepting the keys to a government transition office. Asked about the possibility of announcing Bush's Cabinet before the holidays, Cheney said, "I don't want to set artificial deadlines."

"We are going to do everything we can to get everyone named as quickly as possible," he said.

Cheney, who is running the transition, said the new administration would try to name the Cabinet and forward their security clearances to Congress in enough time for lawmakers to begin holding confirmation hearings in January and be ready to start voting after the inauguration.

That's how it usually works, said Cheney, who served under Presidents Ford and Bush, the president-elect's father. Even though the new Bush administration has just five weeks _ half the normal transition period _ to carry out the appointments process, "We're going to try to adhere to that schedule," said Cheney, who is running Bush's transition.

The Bush team will get extra help from the FBI, which will use additional resources to expedite security checks for Cabinet members, said Clay Johnson, executive director of the transition.

Bush's father had made a dozen top appointments by the fifth week of the transition; President Clinton, on the other hand, didn't appoint a single Cabinet member until six weeks after Election Day.

General Services Administration officials, after keeping the government transition office locked up for five weeks during the election standoff, traveled to the campaign's privately financed transition office in Virginia to give Cheney the building's electronic access card.

"I have here the official key that I'll give you now," said Thurmand Davis, deputy administrator of GSA, as he handed the card to Cheney.

Bush and Cheney also were given access to $5.3 million in public transition funds.

Despite the private office set up Nov. 30, Cheney said the election deadlock, broken Wednesday night with Al Gore's concession, slowed the process of filling positions.

He said it was especially hard to interview Democrats for jobs _ a course Bush seems interested in taking to give his administration a bipartisan flavor after the bitter fight for the White House.

Approaching Democrats was "awkward while there was still a contest under way," Cheney said.

Now, he said, the transition team can be "much more aggressive." Cabinet announcements would begin soon, he said, but declined to elaborate. The 21,000-square-foot Virginia office has served as the epicenter for Bush's transition effort _ and provided Cheney and other key Bush aides with a home during the election impasse.

Gore's concession following a U.S. Supreme Court decision Tuesday night that halted vote recounts in Florida cleared the way for Bush to get both the keys and the money.

The Bush-Cheney transition foundation has raised nearly $3 million in private funds for the purpose of putting together a new government and spent nearly $500,000 so far on everything from the office lease to rent on computers, trash cans and more.

Cheney said the team would use both the Washington and Virginia offices for now.

The Virginia site is close to his home and he said he would be based there for a time. "It's a great commute," he said with a smile, "and I want to take advantage of that."

The government's space in Washington is stocked with computers and other equipment.

One outstanding issue was whether the Bush team could use some of the government money for transition expenses already incurred.

"That has not been resolved yet but we are looking at how to address that," said June Huber, GSA's director of transition. Federal officials previously had said such a reimbursement faced legal hurdles.

The government held off awarding both the money and the office immediately after the election, when the winner would have moved in under normal circumstances, saying the law required an "apparent" winner before the aid could be delivered.

It appeared that the Bush transition team harbored no hard feelings.

"We understand why our friends at GSA have been in a difficult position at the period of time until this election was officially resolved," said Cheney.

The transition team already has accumulated almost 21,000 resumes from people seeking some 6,000 administration jobs, from Cabinet secretary to office secretary. Most resumes were sent via the Internet, lightening the paper load to be moved to Washington if everything is transferred from Virginia.

(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)