Cheney to break silence on shooting accident
First public comments since Saturday's incident

Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Posted: 11:23 a.m. EST (16:23 GMT) 

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (Reuters) -- Vice President Dick Cheney, publicly 
silent since accidentally shooting a Texas lawyer while hunting last week, 
will offer his first words on the incident Wednesday, the White House said.

Cheney will be interviewed by Fox News at 2 p.m. ET, White House press 
secretary Scott McClellan told reporters.

The announcement occurred after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada 
Democrat, and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the top-ranking Democrat in the 
House, emerged from a White House breakfast meeting with President Bush and 
Cheney to say the vice president needed to come forward.

"I guess I'm kind of old-fashioned," Reid said. "He hasn't had a press 
conference in three and a half years."

Said Pelosi: "Open government demands that the vice president come clean 
with what happened ... There's probably a very simple answer to it, but we 
have to break this habit of the administration, of closed government 
without the openness that is healthy to a democracy."

They said they did not tell Cheney to his face that he should come forward 
and that the vice president said little during the breakfast.

Cheney sprayed Harry Whittington, 78, with birdshot while hunting quail in 
Texas Saturday, but has stayed silent on it except for brief statements 
from his office.

Whittington suffered a minor heart attack Tuesday when some of the birdshot 
migrated to his heart. He was rushed into intensive care at Christus Spohn 
Hospital, where he has been treated since the shooting, and remained there 
Wednesday in stable condition, hospital spokeswoman Yvonne Wheeler said. 
(Watch what alerted doctors to the birdshot in Whittington's heart -- 2:32)

In a break from usual White House protocol, the shooting was not revealed 
until Sunday when ranch owner Katharine Armstrong reported it to the Corpus 
Christi Caller-Times.

The failure to disclose the accident touched off a political furor as the 
press complained that the White House had tried to hide the incident and 
Democrats charged it showed the secretiveness of the Bush administration.

A number of Bush's fellow Republicans have been urging Cheney to come 
forward as well. The vice president's press office had no comment on 
whether he would make a statement, but top White House aides were believed 
to be discussing whether he should do so.

"I think Cheney operates in his own world and really doesn't care what the 
press and the public think about him because he's serving the president. 
But in this case, this strategy is beginning to damage the president," said 
a prominent Republican in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Cheney's office issued a statement Tuesday saying the vice president had 
spoken with Whittington by telephone, wished him well and asked if he 
needed anything.

Cheney is scheduled to speak Friday in his home state of Wyoming to the 
state legislature's 2006 budget session in Cheyenne.

Whittington, a Republican stalwart and lawyer in Texas, was struck by up to 
200 pellets when Cheney, hunting on a south Texas ranch, reportedly whirled 
around to fire at a covey of quail and hit Whittington instead.

Whittington's health could determine whether the shooting has any real 
repercussions.

His doctors have been optimistic about his recovery, but said he must stay 
in hospital another week to make sure more birdshot does not migrate to a 
dangerous place.

They said it was unlikely they would try to remove the pellets because 
surgery, particularly if it involved the heart, could be more dangerous 
than leaving the pellets in.

So far, local authorities have said the shooting was simply an accident 
with no misconduct involved.

But if Whittington were to die, local district attorney Carlos Valdez said 
there could be a more-thorough investigation, including possibly a grand 
jury probe that might end up issuing criminal charges such as negligence or 
reckless behavior.

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