Posted on 05/18/2005 12:25:16 PM PDT by EnigmaticAnomaly
TBILISI (Reuters) - A grenade thrown toward President Bush during a visit to Georgia last week was a threat to the American leader and only failed to explode because of a malfunction, the FBI said on Wednesday.
In a statement, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official at the U.S. embassy said the grenade, thrown while Bush made a keynote speech in Tbilisi's Freedom Square on May 10, had been live and landed within 100 feet (30 meters ) of the president.
"While the president ... was making his remarks on Freedom Square, a hand grenade was tossed in the general direction of the main stage and landed within 100 feet of the podium," said C. Bryan Paarmann, the FBI's legal attaché at the embassy.
"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," he said in the statement.
Paarmann said a reward was offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator.
"This hand grenade appears to be a live device that simply failed to function due to a light strike on the blasting cap induced by a slow deployment of the spoon activation device," the FBI statement said.
It contradicted an account by Georgian police at the time who said the grenade was a dud, left at the spot to sow panic among the tens of thousands who turned out to greet Bush.
In Washington, Bush was told about the initial results of the FBI investigation on Tuesday night and was updated about it by FBI director Robert Mueller on Wednesday morning.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush had "absolutely not" lost confidence in the Secret Service charged with protecting him.
"We have full trust in the Secret Service and their ability to address these matters," he said.
The White House had said at the time that Bush, who had visited Georgia to show support for its pro-Western government, had never been in danger. Continued ...
An islamic did it!
Guess our bombers are on the way to that country soon. Do they have WMD? Forget the question, that doesn't matter. They wanted to kill our President.
We need to level Georgia...anyone for a strategic nuke strike? Calling all US Boomers...spin up missiles 1-12 and 13-24 set 1MC for strategic nuclear missile release...
bump
Level Georgia and those 250,000 pro-US people that gathered in the square to see Bush because of 1 idiot?
Thats great policy
Already posted by M. Thatcher (as I was informed afterwards)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1405498/posts?page=1,20
I did a search and it didn't come up, plus I didn't see it on the front page as well... so I'm also guilty of re-posting! I am not entirely certain that the search feature gets everything.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1405648/posts
Surely could have been a miracle.
Thanks for saying what I was thinking.
Glad you agree...:-)
Thank you from adding your prayer to this thread.
May Our Father who art in Heaven continue to bless and protect President Bush and his family. Amen
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