President survives possible assassination attempt

Pengwuino

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

Live Grenade Was Near President, FBI Says
By Edwin Chen
Times Staff Writer

4:49 PM PDT, May 18, 2005

WASHINGTON - The FBI said today that a hand grenade was hurled toward President Bush, and landed within 100 feet of him, as he addressed a massive crowd in Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, on the afternoon of May 10.

The Soviet-made fragmentation grenade failed to detonate only because the blasting cap malfunctioned, authorities said.

U.S. officials said a joint criminal investigation by American and Georgian officials was underway and declined to reveal many details about the apparent assassination attempt.

They said Georgia was offering a reward equivalent to about $11,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible, and appealed to the public for videos or still photographs of the event.

After the grenade-tossing incident, Georgian officials inexplicably waited two hours before informing U.S. authorities.

By then Bush was on his way home after a five-day trip to the Netherlands, Latvia, Russia and Georgia. Enroute to Washington, Air Force One skipped a planned refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland, and instead flew nonstop to Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland.

The decision to bypass Ireland was unrelated to the grenade incident, according to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "We did not even learn about the incident until well after that decision was made," he said by e-mail today.

As news of the grenade-tossing incident became public on the night of May 10, shortly before Air Force One touched down on U.S. soil, White House and Secret Service officials played down the incident, insinuating that the grenade was a dummy. Law enforcement authorities changed their mind after inspecting it.

When it was thrown toward Bush, the grenade was wrapped in a dark Tartan-colored cloth handkerchief. Georgia officials also said it was an RGD-5 grenade, which was first made by the Soviet Union but since has been widely copied and reproduced worldwide.

The grenade weighs about 11 ounces, and contains about four ounces of TNT, according to globalsecurity.com, a military watchdog group.

Bush was first informed of the FBI's conclusion by his senior staff Tuesday night, and then again this morning by FBI Director Robert Mueller as a part of the president's regular daily briefing.

Despite the Tbilisi incident, McClellan said, Bush retains "full trust" in the Secret Service, which is charged with protecting the president.

In Tbilisi, tens of thousands of Georgians had jammed into the city's central square for Bush's early afternoon speech on a beautiful spring day in the capital; and at entry points most distant from the speaker's platform, some overran security checkpoints.

Although officials said little today about the incident, two former high-ranking Secret Service officials discussed the Tbilisi incident as well as the general procedures used by the agency to protect the president - a particularly challenging job when overseas, they said.

"What people have to understand is, the Secret Service does not have authority" on foreign soil, said Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant director of the Secret Service and now the U.S. Senate's sergeant at arms.

When the president is abroad, he said in an interview, "everything [related to security] is done through negotiations with the foreign governments, which are usually very anxious to cooperate," added Pickle, who also was the agent in charge of protecting former Vice President Al Gore.

"So most governments allow the Secret Service to do things like bring cars, electronic equipment to prevent bad things from happening, metal detectors, even K-9 dogs," he said.

In the end, however, "the protection is only as good as the training [and the proficiency] of the locals," said Pickle, who retired from the Secret Service two years ago.

wasteofo2

This is just now news? I had heard reports about this all over CNN on the 11th...

Anyway, I'm glad the guy failed, who'd want Dick Cheney running things?

Pengwuino

They didnt know if it was a grenade on that one round of articles probably around teh 11th; this is just a confirmation article that it was infact, a live grenade.

wasteofo2

I heard live on CNN that it was a home-made grenade which was thrown within 100 feet of the president, that it hadn't gone off but hit a guy. Maybe the government just effectively covered it up and I'm the only one who caught that broadcast...

Pengwuino

When? If it was during the days it happened... then it was just speculation. Everyone was speculating as to what it was. Oen security guy grabbed it and ran off (???) so no one really got a look at it until it was safely away.

And what do you mean by the government covered it up? The Georgian government was kinda like "what... no.. pff, ur crazy, nothing happened, dont worry about it, chill out fool" for the first few days.... if thats what you mean

wasteofo2

Well, I was meeting up with my uncle for dinner on teh 11th, it was before twilight, so it was probabally around 6:30 or so, and at the bar they had CNN on. That damned woman with the black hair was on, don't remember her name, but she's an annoying lil' fuker. Anyway, she was saying all that stuff.

I was speculating that the U.S. government covered it up, not wanting anyone to think that some random dude in Georgia could come close to killing the President.

What I wanna know is how do you throw something at someone and only get it within 100 feet of them? Did he not think to maybe practice throwing things a little bit before he tried to kill the most important political figure in the world, or did he just kinda wing it?

Actually, come to think of it, idiots who are ill prepared to actually kill the President are the overwhelming majority of people who come close to doing so. There was that nut who shot Reagan cause he wanted that actress to like him, that crazy girl (squeaky, or something equally as stupid and infantile) who tried to shoot Gerald Ford, some guy back in the day who wanted to have a position in the President's cabinet but didn't get it so he shot him, way back in the day....

Have there been any assisnations besides those of Lincoln and Kennedy which have actually been methodically planned out and executed?

stoned

You see kids, if you go to church and pray enough God will save you like he saved our Mr President.

JamesU

god...save...bush? the peices don't fit!

Pengwuino

Looks like God loves bush ;) and all the liberals are wrong! lol man... that would sure start a flame fest in any other forum.

@wasteofO2

Well teh government obviously wasnt trying to cover anything up since we obviously now know what it was and the government came out and said what it was. What i dont understand is that... yes... why is it only the loonies who are successful? He might have just been nervous as hell or maybe it was thrown from a looooong way away to avoid security

wasteofo2

Well John Wilkes Booth was actually a confederate sympathizer, and his assasination of Lincoln actually served a political end. Many speculate over a wide array of logical reasons that both John and Robert Kennedey were killed.

I can imagine that the sensible people would realize that killing the President wouldn't do too great a deal in general, though in Lincoln and Kennedey's case, they had VP's whom took the Government in a greatly different direction than their fallen predecessors.

If you sit down and think "George Bush is such a bad president that I must stop him at any cost, even if it means killing him and likely being captured/executed for it", after not too long you'll think "Goddamnit, if George Bush dies then Dick Cheney becomes President, should I try to get them both?" Then you realize, "Fuk, Dennis Hastert is after Cheney, how am I gonna get all three at once? Could I get them seperately, or would they all be so tightly guarded after one was killed that I couldn't?" Then comes, "Gee, I wonder who's after the Speaker of the House in the Presidential sucession," and then you find out that "Crap, Condoleezza Rice is the fourth in line to be President, and after that are just more of Bush's Cabinet members, this is hopeless, I'd have to blow up all of Washington D.C. to get rid of all the guys I don't like."

Plus there's the whole Democracy thing to contend with. It may not be to your liking, but supposedly, every representative in our government was fairly elected, or approved by fairly elected individuals, or approved by individuals appointed by fairly elected individuals, etc. If you believe in Democracy, then killing an elected official is really kind of antithetical.

Pengwuino

lol "screw this, ill just run for president!"

wasteofo2

And thus started the 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater, after he realized that having JFK killed didn't change the country in quite the way he wanted it to.

Tarheel

It makes perfect sense. Bush can never die BECAUSE he is the anti-christ.

He is Pure evil - The balancing Yang to God's Yin...

Pengwuino

And many evil acts shall befall you for making such a comment! He knows when your sleeping.... he knows... when your awake.... he knows when.... wait thats the easter bunny.

stoned

Bush is a pure joke and I like him for that .

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Big Papa

iN this country Bush visitied it's very possible that a Muslim who was mad at the Koran deal ( newsweek story) threw the grenade. It's not like that contry doesn't have Muslims, becasue almost every country in the world has them. That is just to answer the question of "why would anyone want to have the Vice president become the next President?" As far as the reason why That government didn't report it , was because it was still under investigation. When it was obviouse that they did not have a suspect in jail, then they made it public. You have to remember we are at war so the President will be the target. Granted they could not get close enough to actuall do the job they wanted, but that's jsut because of Security forces. The president will just have to have more security or wear Kevlar in pulic.