The Senate has confirmed retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper to serve as the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, a post vacated by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s man Stephen Cambone. Clapper, nominated by President Bush in January, had served for five years as head of the National Geo-spatial Intelligence Agency, before being forced out by Rumsfeld.
With a fresh directive from the president, the department could opt to repeat its unconventional—and potentially unlawful—move to pay troops using unused non-personnel appropriations.
