[Mb-civic] Cheney Says Shooting Was His Fault - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Cheney Says Shooting Was His Fault
But He Stands By Decisions On Disclosure

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 16, 2006; A01

Vice President Cheney accepted full responsibility yesterday for 
shooting a 78-year-old lawyer in a hunting accident in Texas last 
weekend, calling it "one of the worst days of my life," but he expressed 
no regret about waiting until the next day to reveal the incident to the 
public.

Breaking his silence four days after the shooting, a subdued Cheney 
recounted the incident in sometimes stark and personal terms, saying he 
was haunted by the memory of his friend, Harry Whittington, falling to 
the ground. While Cheney allies have faulted Whittington for not 
signaling fellow hunters that he was nearby, the vice president took the 
blame.

"Ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and fired the round that 
hit Harry," Cheney said in a hastily arranged White House interview with 
Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume. "And you can talk about all of the 
other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line. 
And there's no -- it was not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody 
else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say 
that is something I'll never forget."

The vice president rejected critics, including Republicans, who said the 
incident should have been announced promptly by the White House, rather 
than by the ranch owner calling a friendly local reporter the next day. 
"I thought that made good sense because you get as accurate a story as 
possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting," he said, 
adding: "And I thought that was the right call. . . . I still do."

Cheney agreed to discuss the accident publicly only after senior White 
House officials and Republican strategists complained that his belated 
disclosure and refusal to speak out had made the situation worse. The 
furor over the shooting and its aftermath has provided extensive fodder 
for late-night comedians, exposed tensions within the White House 
between Cheney and presidential aides, and drawn fresh criticism about 
the vice president's secretive operating style.

The interview came as Whittington's condition was upgraded at Christus 
Spohn Memorial Hospital in Corpus Christi, Tex., where a birdshot pellet 
was discovered to have moved to his heart and doctors performed a 
cardiac catheterization Tuesday. Whittington was in stable condition 
yesterday and being kept in intensive care only to guard his privacy, 
hospital officials said. Whittington, they added, was sitting up, eating 
regular food and contemplating doing legal work.

"He's doing extremely well," said Peter Banko, a hospital vice 
president, who estimated that Whittington would remain hospitalized six 
more days. Whittington "still kind of wonders what all the hoopla is 
about," Banko said. "It's kind of much ado about nothing." David 
Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said he was "100 percent 
satisfied that where the BB is, it will remain."

White House aides and allies expressed hope that Cheney's public 
comments would defuse the uproar. "If people get an understanding of 
what happened and how he feels about it, then in the long term this 
isn't going to be a problem for him," said Charles R. Black, a 
Republican strategist who advises the White House.

But Democrats continued to pound away. Even before the interview, the 
office of Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) issued a statement 
accusing Cheney of being "unable, or unwilling, to level with the 
American people." Sen. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.) added: "Vice President 
Cheney had a chance to shoot straight with the American people, but he 
decided to stonewall and delay. Now that he feels forced to talk, he 
wants to restrict the discussion to a friendly news outlet, guaranteeing 
no hard questions from the press corps."

Like other aspects of the incident, Cheney's office kept its plan to 
grant the interview tightly held until just shortly beforehand. While 
President Bush flew to Ohio to talk about his health care plan yesterday 
morning, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters 
aboard Air Force One that he had no updates to Cheney's schedule for the 
day. Fifteen minutes later, he returned to the press cabin to say that 
Cheney would go on television.

In a sign of the extraordinary tension inside the White House -- 
evidently even between Bush and Cheney -- McClellan noted that when he 
said at a Monday briefing that he would have handled disclosure of the 
shooting differently, he was "speaking on behalf of the White House and 
the president."

The 27-minute interview, in Cheney's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower 
Executive Office Building, was a remarkable moment in modern politics as 
a vice president described shooting another person. Cheney's account 
largely squared with that of Katharine Armstrong, one of the owners of 
the huge Armstrong Ranch in southern Texas where the vice president was 
hunting Saturday. But, in his own reserved way, Cheney sounded emotional 
about what happened.

"The image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of 
my mind," he said softly. "I fired, and there's Harry falling. And it 
was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life."

Whittington, dressed in hunter's orange and wearing hunting glasses, had 
left the group of three hunters to recover a bird he had shot and, 
according to Armstrong, did not let his partners know he had returned. 
Cheney said he was trying to shoot a low-flying quail when he swung his 
28-gauge shotgun to the right, the setting sun in his eyes. "I turned 
and shot at the bird, and at that second saw Harry standing there," he said.

Cheney estimated that Whittington was 30 yards away when the birdshot 
struck the right side of his face, neck and torso and knocked him to the 
ground, where he lay bleeding as the vice president rushed over.

"We went over to him, obviously, right away," Cheney said. He said 
Whittington was conscious, with one eye open. "He was laying there on 
his back, obviously bleeding."

Cheney recalled: "I said, 'Harry, I had no idea you were there.' He 
didn't respond."

The vice president said a physician assistant from his entourage arrived 
on the scene within a minute or two to treat Whittington, who was later 
taken to a hospital with as many as 200 pellets embedded in him.

Cheney described Whittington as an acquaintance he first met 30 years 
ago but said this was their first time hunting together. The vice 
president said that he had consumed a beer during a barbecue lunch hours 
earlier but added that no one was drinking at the time of the shooting, 
which authorities said took place about 5:30 p.m. Texas time. Banko, the 
hospital administrator, declined to comment yesterday on whether 
Whittington was given a blood alcohol test when he was admitted Saturday 
night.

Whittington's health could have an impact on whether Cheney faces 
significant legal repercussions. Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III 
has said that the shooting was an accident with no misconduct involved. 
But if Whittington were to die, Carlos Valdez, the district attorney for 
Kleberg County, who also has jurisdiction in Kenedy County, said a grand 
jury would investigate the case and could press criminal charges.

Although the White House was notified of the incident Saturday night, 
Cheney said he did not speak with Bush or anyone else there until Sunday 
morning, when he talked with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card 
Jr. He did not talk with the president until Monday. Cheney acknowledged 
that White House aides pressed him to disclose the incident promptly and 
directly. "They urged us to get the story out," he said. "The decision 
about how it got out, basically, was my responsibility."

He said he decided it was better to wait to see how Whittington was 
faring before informing the media and blamed the resulting controversy 
on jealousy by the White House press corps that a small Texas newspaper 
was told first.

A longtime hunter, Cheney suggested that he may reconsider pursuing the 
avocation. "It's part of who I am," he said. "But, as I say, the season 
is ending. I'm going to let some time pass over it and think about the 
future."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021501133.html?referrer=email
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