Bush Assassination Attempt in Georgia

Georgian and American security officers are investigating how an unarmed grenade came to be found near the site where President Bush Tuesday delivered an address before a packed crowd on Tbilisi's Freedom Square.

The hand-grenade was found 150 feet from the podium in Tbilisi's Freedom Square where Bush addressed some 120,000 people on Tuesday, said Gela Bezhuashvili, secretary of Georgia's national security council.

US security officials said the grenade had been thrown, but Bezhuashvili denied this and underlined that the device was not even ready to explode.

Agents from the Georgian and American security services will be looking into how the grenade happened to be so close to the podium, despite tight security and weeks of advance preparation.

Agents from the US Secret Service, which had spent weeks in the Georgian capital making preparations, scrutinised the dense crowd during the president's speech.

But attempts by Georgian police to control the excited crowds and screen all visitors with metal detectors collapsed when thousands of people forced their way through barriers.

The middle-ranking Georgian security officer, who asked not to be named, defended the arrangements, saying any assassination attempt would have failed.

"There were agents everywhere, dressed as ordinary people, in the crowd, on top of buildings, keeping track of everything that went on," he said.

President Bush returned to the United States, late Tuesday, completing a five-day European tour that also took him to Latvia and Russia.


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