The United States is holding together despite the dispute over the results of the presidential election, CIA Director George Tenet told Bronx high-schoolers yesterday.
“Troops aren’t in the streets. The police aren’t in the streets,” Tenet said during his talk at Bronx HS of Science.
Tenet – a native of Astoria, Queens – indicated he thinks the election is still in doubt between Texas Gov. George Bush and Vice President Al Gore, even though Bush was certified the winner in Florida on Sunday.
“My job is to help either man assume the office,” he said.
Tenet insisted the spy agency is “apolitical.”
He stressed the CIA does all it can to keep American citizens safe.
“In the last year, we’ve stopped planned terrorist bombings in American locations,” he said, without discussing specifics.
But students grilled Tenet about the CIA’s past decisions to prop up anti-democratic dictators who committed human-rights abuses.
“I try to focus on the future, not the past,” Tenet said, adding that the agency focuses on promoting democracy abroad.