The US Senate has confirmed retired Navy Admiral Mike McConnell as President George W Bush's top intelligence adviser.
The nomination was approved without dissent, one day after the 15-member Senate Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously endorsed Adm McConnell's candidacy.
He will succeed the departing John Negroponte whom Mr Bush has nominated to serve as deputy secretary of state.
A post created by post-September 11 reforms, the intelligence chief runs the US's 16 espionage agencies.
Adm McConnell (63) is a career military intelligence officer. He ran the National Security Agency, the Pentagon's electronic surveillance and code-breaking organization, from 1992 to 1996.
The agency has more recently become embroiled in controversy over Mr Bush's domestic spying program.
Adm McConnell rose to prominence as an intelligence officer during the administration of Mr Bush's father, former President George Bush, serving as a 1991 Gulf War adviser to Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He has spent the past decade as a private sector consultant on military intelligence and information operations with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.