Bush denies accident shows an overly secretive White House

WASHINGTON -- President Bush says critics are drawing "the wrong conclusion about a tragic accident" when they say the delayed disclosure of Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting mishap is an indicator of an overly secretive White House.

Commenting about last Saturday's accident for the first time, Bush said Thursday that Cheney handled the situation "just fine."

"I'm satisfied with the explanation he gave," Bush said, calling it "strong and powerful."

In Texas, the Kenedy County Sheriff's Department has closed its investigation without filing any charges. The department's report supported Cheney's account of the accident that injured 78-year-old lawyer Harry Whittington during a quail hunting trip on a private ranch in Texas.

Cheney told an investigator that he did not see his hunting partner while aiming for a bird. The report also included the first public account from Whittington, interviewed from his hospital bed Monday.

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.

Whittington was hit with shotgun pellets in the face, neck and chest. He remained in stable condition in a Corpus Christi hospital after suffering a mild heart attack caused by a shotgun pellet that traveled to his heart.

The sheriff's report said Whittington declined the deputies' request to record the interview because he said his voice was raspy. Before a nurse asked the officers to "hurry up so Mr. Whittington could rest," he repeatedly insisted the shooting "was just an accident" and expressed concern that all the media attention would give hunting in Texas a bad image, the report said.

Bush described Cheney as extremely distraught since he shot Whittington.

"The vice president was involved in a terrible accident and it profoundly affected him," Bush said during a photo opportunity with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. "Yesterday when he was here in the Oval Office, I saw the deep concern he had about a person who he wounded."

Cheney planned to keep his previously scheduled speech to the Wyoming Legislature on Friday and expected to stay for the weekend at his home there.

The administration was eager to put to rest a public relations firestorm arising from Cheney's failure to disclose Saturday's accident until the next day. The episode had knocked the White House off stride and distracted attention from Bush's agenda.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada was among those who used the situation to suggest the administration needs to be less secretive.

And Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican and Vietnam war veteran, told The Omaha World-Herald, "If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety."

Cheney told his story in an interview Wednesday with Fox News Channel; it was his only public statement on the accident. Cheney said it was "one of the worst days of my life," while accepting full blame for the accident and defending his decision to delay the public disclosure until the next day.

Although Cheney has a penchant for doing his work outside the public spotlight, the chance that he will have to testify in the CIA leak investigation will keep a focus on the vice president's office.

Cheney raised that possibility in his Fox interview while refusing to comment about whether he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters.

His ex-aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is under indictment on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. Libby told a grand jury that he was authorized to leak the information by his superiors, according to court documents.

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Associated Press writer Kelley Shannon in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.