WASHINGTON, May 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Senate confirmed Gina Haspel on Thursday to be the director of the CIA, despite her ties to the agency's past controversial interrogation program.
Haspel will become the country's first female CIA director.
The confirmation came a day after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 10-5 in favor of Haspel to be the new CIA director.
Haspel's nomination has came under fire for her past ties to the CIA's former rendition, detention and interrogation activities, carried out in the years following the Sept. 11 attacks, with the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding, now widely considered torture.
In 2002, Haspel supervised a secret prison in Thailand where harsh interrogations were conducted and she destroyed CIA interrogation tapes years later. Her specific role in the program remains classified.
Opponents of her nomination included more than 100 retired admirals and generals, who said her role in the agency's use of torture would encourage foreign governments to torture American soldiers.
In a letter dated May 14 to Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Haspel wrote that the interrogation program "is not one the CIA should have undertaken."
"While I won't condemn those that made these hard calls, and I have noted the valuable intelligence collected, the program ultimately did damage to our officers and our standing in the world," she added.
The letter represented a stronger stance on the controversial program than Haspel took during her confirmation hearing last week.
Haspel, an undercover officer for most of her 33-year career with the CIA, promised then that the program would not be restarted under her leadership, but did not go as far as saying it should not have been started.
The 61-year-old Kentucky native who became acting CIA director following her predecessor Mike Pompeo's resignation to become U.S. secretary of state was nominated by Trump to become the permanent director in March.
