The US Senate confirmed John Negroponte on Thursday as the first director of national intelligence, to take control of the country's 15 spy agencies.

Negroponte, 65, was nominated by President George W. Bush in February and was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 98 to two.

A veteran diplomat, Negroponte was a former US representative to the United Nations and served as the top US diplomat in Iraq since June last year.

With the confirmation, Negroponte will take charge of an intelligence community consisting of 15 agencies that span several departments and employ some 100,000 civilian and military personnel.

The new post to coordinate US intelligence was created in December last year, in response to recommendations of an independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

In its final report released in July last year, the Sept. 11 commission criticized the intelligence community for failures leading up to the attacks and called on the Congress to create a powerful director to oversee all 15 intelligence agencies.

(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2005)