Biden Takes Week-Long Break In South Carolina

August 6, 2009 11:09 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday began his vacation in South Carolina with second lady Jill Biden.

Biden will be staying at the private residence of Maria Allwin in Kiawah Island. He returns to Washington next Thursday.

It will be the first week-long break for the 66-year-old vice president, who has been tasked by President Barack Obama to coordinate the implementation of the $787 economic stimulus, as well as oversee the political reconciliation of tribal factions and federal autonomous regions in Iraq, where U.S. troops withdrew from cities and localities on June 30.

A former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden has also been an active international spokesman for the administration.

He set the tone for Obama's foreign policy in a speech before the 45th Munich Conference in February, and made a four-day trip to Eastern Europe last month to assuage Georgia and Ukraine that the United States will not reset its ties with Russia at the expense of any former Soviet satellites.