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Grenade tossed at Bush no dud

The explosive is now described as "a threat" that came within 100 feet of the president in Tbilisi, Georgia.

By wire services
Published May 19, 2005

A live hand grenade tossed into a crowd in the former Soviet republic of Georgia last week posed "a threat to the health and welfare" of President Bush and landed close enough that he could have been hit with explosive fragments had it detonated, the FBI and explosives experts said Wednesday.

The grenade, initially described as a harmless dud or training device, was in fact a live explosive that someone threw while Bush addressed tens of thousands of Georgians in Tbilisi, the capital, on May 10 with President Mikhail Saakashvili at his side, the American Embassy's legal attache, Bryan Paarmann of the FBI, said in a statement.

Only a malfunction averted the attack, Paarmann said. The activation device deployed too slowly to hit the blasting cap hard enough.

It was unclear how much danger the president faced.

"We consider this act to be a threat against the health and welfare of both the president of the United States and the president of Georgia, as well as the multitude of Georgian people that had turned out at this event," Paarmann said in the statement, released by the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi.

Georgian officials said previously that the grenade, at a distance of 100 feet and amid a teeming crowd, would not have harmed the men even if it had exploded. But U.S. and Georgian officials have identified the device as a Soviet-era RGD-5 hand grenade, which contains just under 4 ounces of TNT, according to specifications from Soviet weapons manuals. Although the RGD-5's effective range is about 65 feet, some fragments can travel 100 feet or more, according to the specifications.

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed law enforcement sources and security experts, reported that Bush was probably not within the grenade's "kill range" but that shrapnel could have reached him at the podium. Because the grenade was lobbed into the crowd, people standing between the device and the stage might have absorbed much of the blast, the sources said.

It remains unclear whether the grenade was aimed at Bush or Saakashvili or was simply intended as a deadly disruption of what turned out to be an ebullient event. An estimated 150,000 people thronged the city's Freedom Square and greeted Bush enthusiastically.

The grenade was wrapped in a dark plaid handkerchief. It was "tossed in the general direction of the main stage" about 1:30 p.m., right after Bush began speaking, and landed less than 100 feet shy of the podium, Paarmann said. After bouncing off a child's cap, the grenade was removed by a Georgian security officer.

Appearing with Georgia's deputy minister of internal affairs, Bidzina Bregadze, Paarmann said an investigation into the incident continued. They announced a reward of more than $11,000 for information leading to an arrest and appealed to any Georgians who might have seen the incident or taken photographs or video of it to come forward.

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy think tank, said the incident raises serious questions about the Secret Service's performance.

"Why didn't they have effective perimeter control? That is the question," Pike said. "The system did work in the sense that the munition did not get within its lethal radius. But when you do the arithmetic, it was just barely. It's not giving yourself much margin."

Bush knew nothing about the grenade until he left the country. Georgian authorities did not tell the president's security detail until after his plane left for Washington, and they initially played down its import, saying it had not been thrown and was not live.

Paarmann did not mention any suspects or motives. Georgia, however, is riven by two separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whose leaders are close to Russia and despise Georgia's leaders. Saakashvili, despite his popularity, has also stoked enmity with his aggressive policies since becoming president in 2004.

Bush is typically protected by rings of security that get more stringent the closer to him they are. On the stage in Tbilisi, he was at least partly protected by sheets of what seemed to be bulletproof glass, though they were not directly in front of him.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said that Bush was informed Tuesday night of the findings of the investigation, and that he received more details Wednesday morning in his intelligence briefing.

Asked to describe Bush's reaction, McClellan did not respond directly. "We want to see the results of the investigation and know more about what the facts are," he said.

The number of metal detectors set up by the Secret Service, based on predictions by Georgian authorities, proved far too few. The crowd was one of the largest Bush has addressed. After three hours, authorities were overwhelmed by the enormous number of people and let many go around the detectors.

"The Secret Service is looking into all those issues," McClellan said.

Bush's decision to go to Georgia - a poor, dangerous country struggling to make the transition from ex-communist backwater to economically thriving democracy - had his security detail jumpy for weeks.

At the speech, Georgian police were out in force. U.S. snipers took positions on rooftops.

Information from the Washington Post, Associated Press and New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified May 19, 2005, 00:44:07]