Washington, July 1 (ANI): The US Senate has confirmed General David Petraeus as the new CIA chief.
Stepping down as commander of US-led NATO operations in Afghanistan, General Petraeus is the first CIA director to arrive on the job straight from commanding a war.
Petraeus was also commander of multinational forces in Iraq under President Bush, Fox News reports.
"America is in good hands with Dave Petraeus as CIA director," Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina was quoted, as saying.
The US Senate voted an overwhelming 94-0 to confirm Petraeus as the next director of the CIA, a post left vacant by Leon Panetta's appointment as defense secretary.
"His military service will come in handy. I think his analytical skills and ability will come in handy. He is the right man for the job," the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said.
Petraeus got his perfect Senate score even as news arrived in Washington that Pakistan has ordered the US out of one of the air bases from which the CIA operated drones.
The new CIA chief will have to manage an expanding covert war on Islamist extremism even as some of the tactics used in that war fuel growing controversies around the world, the report said.
"Petraeus is coming on at CIA at a time when it is going to be much more counter terrorism, the drone strikes and the special operations," Lawrence Korb, a US foreign policy expert at the Center for American Progress said.
"He is also going to have to deal with much more opposition from those parts of the world where these tactics are used. But the opposition won't stop their use," he added. (ANI)
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