Grenade found after Bush visit

TBILISI, Georgia -- Was it a bid to undermine a visit by President Bush -- or evidence of a real assassination plot?\nA grenade found near a stage where Bush addressed crowds of Georgians on Tuesday has set off a flurry of speculation. The array of potential culprits -- from disgruntled Georgians to local minorities and even Russian saboteurs -- reflects the instability of a volatile country struggling through transition.\nThe address to tens of thousands of people in Tbilisi's Freedom Square was the centerpiece of a Bush visit choreographed to cement relations between the United States and the ex-Soviet republic's new pro-Western leadership.\nNational Security Council chief Gela Bezhuashvili said Wednesday he suspected the grenade, which he described as inactive, was planted in a deliberate bid to undermine the rosy scenario.\n"The goal is clear -- to frighten or to scare people and to attract the attention of the mass media," he said. "The goal has been reached, and that is why I'm talking to you now."\nBezhuashvili said neither Bush nor Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili -- who were both behind bulletproof glass -- were in any danger. The Soviet-era grenade was found about 100 feet from the stage, he added.\nHe also denied reports the grenade was thrown -- contradicting a statement from U.S. Secret Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry, who said it hit somebody in the crowd and dropped to the ground.\nBush wasn't even aware of the grenade report until Secret Service agents on the plane told him about it as his plane was returning to Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, spokesman Scott McClellan said, adding that the White House never believed the president's life was in danger.\n"The Secret Service and FBI are continuing to look into it," McClellan said Wednesday. "There have been different reports about what happened and what exactly it was."\nDavid Losaberidze, an analyst at the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, said the culprit was likely an angry Georgian.\n"The idea is, 'Look, the government is celebrating, holding a grandiose show while we go hungry,'" he said.\nSeen as a land of plenty in Soviet times, Georgia was plunged into poverty as the communist system fell apart and is still struggling to survive economically.\nIts people have placed huge hopes in Saakashvili, reflected in his landslide January 2004 election, but his failure to bring swift economic improvement has strained his popularity.\nThe country's location in the Caucasus Mountains, at the crossroads of Russia and the Middle East and on a promising westward route for Caspian Sea oil riches, has made it a target in struggles for influence in the wake of the 1991 Soviet collapse.\nOther observers blamed the grenade incident on a more influential group of disgruntled Georgians: members of the former elite Saakashvili has fired in government shake-ups aimed in part at stemming the corruption plaguing the country.