Washington – Texas authorities closed the investigation into Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident Thursday without bringing any charges. President Bush said Cheney had handled the situation “just fine.”
“I’m satisfied with the explanation he gave,” Bush said, making his first public comments about Cheney’s accidental shooting of 78-year-old attorney Harry Whittington while aiming for a quail. Bush said the vice president’s explanation was “strong and powerful.”
The administration was eager to put to rest a public-relations firestorm arising from Cheney’s failure to publicly disclose Saturday’s accident until the next day. The episode had knocked the White House off stride and distracted attention from Bush’s agenda.
Bush said critics were drawing “the wrong conclusion about a tragic accident” by saying it depicted the White House as overly secretive. He raised no objection to the delay in the disclosure of the shooting – although senior White House aides had argued unsuccessfully for the announcement to be made more quickly and for Cheney to speak out sooner.
“The vice president was involved in a terrible accident and it profoundly affected him,” Bush said during an Oval Office photo opportunity. “Yesterday when he was here in the Oval Office, I saw the deep concern he had about a person who he wounded.”
In Texas, the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department issued a report supporting Cheney’s account of the accident that occurred on a sprawling private ranch. Deputies visited the scene, got written affidavits from at least four other members of the hunting party and interviewed Cheney and Whittington, the report said.
Whittington “explained foremost there was no alcohol during the hunt and everyone was wearing the proper hunting attire of blaze orange,” reported Chief Deputy Gilberto San Miguel Jr.
