Cheney takes responsibility for shooting

updated 11:19 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2006

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday accepted full blame for shooting a fellow hunter and defended his decision to not publicly reveal the accident until the following day. He called it “one of the worst days of my life.”

“I’m the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry,” Cheney told Fox News Channel in his first public comments since the shooting Saturday in south Texas.

Fox’s Brit Hume, who conducted the interview, said Cheney told him he had “a beer” with lunch hours before the accident. Hume said Cheney told him “no one was drinking” while hunting.

“You don’t hunt with people who drink. That’s not a good idea,” the vice president said.

Cheney described seeing 78-year-old Harry Whittington fall to the ground after he pulled the trigger while aiming at a covey of quail.

“The image of him falling is something I’ll never ever be able to get out of my mind,” Cheney said. “I fired, and there’s Harry falling. It was, I’d have to say, one of the worst days of my life at that moment.”

“We really didn’t know until Sunday morning that Harry was probably going to be OK, that it looked like there hadn’t been any serious damage to any vital organ,” he said. “And that’s when we began the process of notifying the press.”

‘I had no press person’
Regarding the more than 20 hours it took for the incident to be reported, Cheney told Hume, “Accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me.”

Katharine Armstrong, who owns the ranch where Cheney was shooting, ultimately reported the story to a local Texas newspaper, not Cheney himself.

Kelly West / WpN file Attorney Harry Whittington, seen Jan. 25, is recovering in the hospital after Vice President Cheney accidentally shot him on Saturday.

“There are a lot of basic important parts of the story that required some degree of understanding,” Cheney said, noting that the reporter Armstrong first spoke with did not know the difference between a rifle bullet and a shotgun shell.

“And so we were confident that Katharine was the right one, especially because she was an eyewitness and she could speak authoritatively on it.  She probably knew better than I did what had happened since I’d only seen one piece of it.”

Cheney was soft-spoken and somber during the interview.

‘It was not Harry’s fault’
“You can talk about all of the other conditions that exist at the time but that’s the bottom line and — it was not Harry’s fault,” he said. “You can’t blame anybody else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.”

Texas officials said the shooting was an accident, and no charges have been brought against the vice president.

A report that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department issued Monday said Whittington was retrieving a downed bird and stepped out of the hunting line he was sharing with Cheney.

“Another covey was flushed and Cheney swung on a bird and fired, striking Whittington in the face, neck and chest at approximately 30 yards,” the report said.

Cheney said he fortunately always has a medical team with him, and members of that team responded to Whittington immediately after the accident.

“I ran over to him,” Cheney said. “He was laying there on his back, obviously bleeding. You could see where the shot struck him.”

He said he has no idea if he hit a bird because he was completely focused on Whittington.

“I said, ‘Harry, I had no idea you were there.’ He didn’t respond,” Cheney said.

Hume questioned Cheney on whether he felt he had put White House spokesman Scott McClellan in a tough position by making him answer questions about the shooting before Cheney spoke with the media.

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