Text 2146, 603 rader
Skriven 2006-02-15 23:33:28 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0602153) for Wed, 2006 Feb 15
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Interview of the Vice President by Brit Hume, FOX News
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
February 15, 2006

Interview of the Vice President by Brit Hume, FOX News
Vice President's Ceremonial Office
Eisenhower Executive Office Building



2:01 P.M. EST

Q Mr. Vice President, how is Mr. Whittington?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the good news is he's doing very well today. I
talked to him yesterday after they discovered the heart problem, but it
appears now to have been pretty well resolved and the reporting today is
very good.

Q How did you feel when you heard about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's a great relief. But I won't be, obviously,
totally at ease until he's home. He's going to be in the hospital,
apparently, for a few more days, and the problem, obviously, is that
there's always the possibility of complications in somebody who is 78-79
years old. But he's a great man, he's in great shape, good friend, and our
thoughts and prayers go out to he and his family.

Q How long have you known him?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I first met him in Vail, Colorado, when I worked for
Gerry Ford about 30 years ago, and it was the first time I'd ever hunted
with him.

Q Would you describe him as a close friend, friendly acquaintance, what --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, an acquaintance.

Q Tell me what happened?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, basically, we were hunting quail late in the day
--

Q Describe the setting.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's in south Texas, wide-open spaces, a lot of brush
cover, fairly shallow. But it's wild quail. It's some of the best quail
hunting anyplace in the country. I've gone there, to the Armstrong ranch,
for years. The Armstrongs have been friends for over 30 years. And a group
of us had hunted all day on Saturday --

Q How many?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, probably 10 people. We weren't all together, but
about 10 guests at the ranch. There were three of us who had gotten out of
the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had been pointed by the
dogs. Covey is flushed, we've shot, and each of us got a bird. Harry
couldn't find his, it had gone down in some deep cover, and so he went off
to look for it. The other hunter and I then turned and walked about a
hundred yards in another direction --

Q Away from him?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Away from him -- where another covey had been spotted
by an outrider. I was on the far right --

Q There was just two of you then?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just two of us at that point. The guide or outrider
between us, and of course, there's this entourage behind us, all the cars
and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there -- but bird flushed
and went to my right, off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and
at that second, saw Harry standing there. Didn't know he was there --

Q You had pulled the trigger and you saw him?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I saw him fall, basically. It had happened so
fast.

Q What was he wearing?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He was dressed in orange, he was dressed properly, but
he was also -- there was a little bit of a gully there, so he was down a
little ways before land level, although I could see the upper part of his
body when -- I didn't see it at the time I shot, until after I'd fired. And
the sun was directly behind him -- that affected the vision, too, I'm sure.

But the image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of
my mind. I fired, and there's Harry falling. And it was, I'd have to say,
one of the worst days of my life, at that moment.

Q Then what?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we went over to him, obviously, right away --

Q How far away from you was he?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm guessing about 30 yards, which was a good thing. If
he'd been closer, obviously, the damage from the shot would have been
greater.

Q Now, is it clear that -- he had caught part of the shot, is that right?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- part of the shot. He was struck in the right side of
his face, his neck and his upper torso on the right side of his body.

Q And you -- and I take it, you missed the bird.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have no idea. I mean, you focused on the bird, but as
soon as I fired and saw Harry there, everything else went out of my mind. I
don't know whether the bird went down, or didn't.

Q So did you run over to him or --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Ran over to him and --

Q And what did you see? He's lying there --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He was laying there on his back, obviously bleeding.
You could see where the shot had struck him. And one of the fortunate
things was that I've always got a medical team, in effect, covering me
wherever I go. I had a physician's assistant with me that day. Within a
minute or two he was on the scene administering first-aid. And --

Q And Mr. Whittington was conscious, unconscious, what?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He was conscious --

Q What did you say?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I said, "Harry, I had no idea you were there."
And --

Q What did he say?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He didn't respond. He was -- he was breathing,
conscious at that point, but he didn't -- he was, I'm sure, stunned,
obviously, still trying to figure out what had happened to him. The doc was
fantastic --

Q What did you think when you saw the injuries? How serious did they appear
to you to be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I had no idea how serious it was going to be. I mean,
it could have been extraordinarily serious. You just don't know at that
moment. You know he's been struck, that there's a lot of shot that had hit
him. But you don't know -- you think about his eyes. Fortunately, he was
wearing hunting glasses, and that protected his eyes. You -- you just don't
know. And the key thing, as I say, initially, was that the physician's
assistant was right there. We also had an ambulance at the ranch, because
one always follows me around wherever I go. And they were able to get the
ambulance there, and within about 30 minutes we had him on his way to the
hospital.

Q And what did you do then? Did you get up and did you go with him, or did
you go to the hospital?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I had -- I told my physician's assistant to go with
him, but the ambulance is crowded and they didn't need another body in
there. And so we loaded up and went back to ranch headquarters, basically.
By then, it's about 7:00 p.m. at night. And Harry --

Q Did you have a sense then of how he was doing?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we're getting reports, but they were confusing.
Early reports are always wrong. The initial reports that came back from the
ambulance were that he was doing well, his eyes were open. They got him
into the emergency room at Kingsville --

Q His eyes were open when you found him, then, right?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes. One eye was open. But they got him in the
emergency room in the small hospital at Kingsville, checked him out further
there, then lifted him by helicopter from there into Corpus Christi, which
has a big city hospital and all of the equipment.

Q So by now what time is it?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't have an exact time line, although he got there
sometime that evening, 8:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.

Q So this is several hours after the incident?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I would say he was in Kingsville in the emergency
room probably within, oh, less than an hour after they left the ranch.

Q Now, you're a seasoned hunter --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am, well, for the last 12, 15 years.

Q Right, and so you know all the procedures and how to maintain the proper
line and distance between you and other hunters, and all that. So how, in
your judgment, did this happen? Who -- what caused this? What was the
responsibility here?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger
that fired the round that hit Harry. 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.

Q Now, what about this -- it was said you were hunting out of vehicles. Was
that because you have to have the vehicles, or was that because that's your
-- the way you chose to hunt that day?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, the way -- this is a big ranch, about 50,000 acres.
You cover a lot of territory on a quail hunt. Birds are oftentimes --
you're looking for coveys. And these are wild quail, they're not
pen-raised. And you hunt them

-- basically, you have people out on horseback, what we call outriders, who
are looking for the quail. And when they spot them, they've got radios,
you'll go over, and say, get down and flush the quail. So you need --

Q So you could be a distance of a miles from where you spot quail until the
next place you may find them?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, usually you'll be, you know, maybe a few hundred
yards. Might be farther than that; could be a quarter of a mile.

Q Does that kind of hunting only go forward on foot, or is it mostly --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, you always -- in that part of the country, you
always are on vehicles, until you get up to where the covey is. Then you
get off -- there will be dogs down, put down; the dogs will point to covey.
And then you walk up on the covey. And as the covey flushes, that's when
you shoot.

Q Was anybody drinking in this party?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No. You don't hunt with people who drink. That's not a
good idea. We had --

Q So he wasn't, and you weren't?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Correct. We'd taken a break at lunch -- go down under
an old -- ancient oak tree there on the place, and have a barbecue. I had a
beer at lunch. After lunch we take a break, go back to ranch headquarters.
Then we took about an hour-long tour of ranch, with a ranch hand driving
the vehicle, looking at game. We didn't go back into the field to hunt
quail until about, oh, sometime after 3:00 p.m.

The five of us who were in that party were together all afternoon. Nobody
was drinking, nobody was under the influence.

Q Now, what thought did you give, then, to how -- you must have known that
this was -- whether it was a matter of state, or not, was news. What
thought did you give that evening to how this news should be transmitted?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, my first reaction, Brit, was not to think: I need
to call the press. My first reaction is: My friend, Harry, has been shot
and we've got to take care of him. That evening there were other
considerations. We wanted to make sure his family was taken care of. His
wife was on the ranch. She wasn't with us when it happened, but we got her
hooked up with the ambulance on the way to the hospital with Harry. He has
grown children; we wanted to make sure they were notified, so they didn't
hear on television that their father had been shot. And that was important,
too.

But we also didn't know what the outcome here was going to be. We didn't
know for sure what kind of shape Harry was in. We had preliminary reports,
but they wanted to do a CAT scan, for example, to see how -- whether or not
there was any internal damage, whether or not any vital organ had been
penetrated by any of the shot. We did not know until Sunday morning that we
could be confident that everything was probably going to be okay.

Q When did the family -- when had the family been informed? About what
time?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, his wife -- his wife knew as he was leaving the
ranch --

Q Right, what about his children?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I didn't make the calls to his children, so I don't
know exactly when those contacts were made. One of his daughters had made
it to the hospital by the next day when I visited. But one of the things
I'd learned over the years was first reports are often wrong and you need
to really wait and nail it down. And there was enough variation in the
reports we were getting from the hospital, and so forth -- a couple of
people who had been guests at the ranch went up to the hospital that
evening; one of them was a doctor, so he obviously had some professional
capabilities in terms of being able to relay messages. But we really didn't
know until Sunday morning that Harry was probably going to be okay, that it
looked like there hadn't been any serious damage to any vital organ. And
that's when we began the process of notifying the press.

Q Well, what -- you must have recognized, though, with all your experience
in Washington, that this was going to be a big story.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, true, it was unprecedented. I've been in the
business for a long time and never seen a situation quite like this. We've
had experiences where the President has been shot; we've never had a
situation where the Vice President shot somebody.

Q Not since Aaron Burr.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Not since Aaron Burr --

Q Different circumstances.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Different circumstances.

Q Well, did it occur to you that sooner was -- I mean, the one thing that
we've all kind of learned over the last several decades is that if
something like this happens, as a rule sooner is better.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if it's accurate. If it's accurate. And this is a
complicated story.

Q But there were some things you knew. I mean, you knew the man had been
shot, you knew he was injured, you knew he was in the hospital, and you
knew you'd shot him.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Correct.

Q And you knew certainly by sometime that evening that the relevant members
of his family had been called. I realize you didn't know the outcome, and
you could argue that you don't know the outcome today, really, finally.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: As we saw, if we'd put out a report Saturday night on
what we heard then -- one report came in that said, superficial injuries.
If we'd gone with a statement at that point, we'd have been wrong. And it
was also important, I thought, to get the story out as accurately as
possible, and this is a complicated story that, frankly, most reporters
would never have dealt with before, so --

Q Had you discussed this with colleagues in the White House, with the
President, and so on?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I did not. The White House was notified, but I did not
discuss it directly, myself. I talked to Andy Card, I guess it was Sunday
morning.

Q Not until Sunday morning? Was that the first conversation you'd had with
anybody in the -- at the White House?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q And did you discuss this with Karl Rove at any time, as has been
reported?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, Karl talks to -- I don't recall talking to Karl.
Karl did talk with Katherine Armstrong, who is a good mutual friend to both
of us. Karl hunts at the Armstrong, as well --

Q Say that again?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I said Karl has hunted at the Armstrong, as well, and
we're both good friends of the Armstrongs and of Katherine Armstrong. And
Katherine suggested, and I agreed, that she would go make the announcement,
that is that she'd put the story out. And I thought that made good sense
for several reasons. First of all, she was an eye-witness. She'd seen the
whole thing. Secondly, she'd grown up on the ranch, she'd hunted there all
of her life. Third, she was the immediate past head of the Texas Wildlife
and Parks Department, the game control commission in the state of Texas, an
acknowledged expert in all of this.

And she wanted to go to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, which is the local
newspaper, covers that area, to reporters she knew. And I thought that made
good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from
somebody who knew and understood hunting. And then it would immediately go
up to the wires and be posted on the website, which is the way it went out.
And I thought that was the right call.

Q What do you think now?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I still do. I still think that the accuracy was
enormously important. I had no press person with me, I didn't have any
press people with me. I was there on a private weekend with friends on a
private ranch. In terms of who I would contact to have somebody who would
understand what we're even talking about, the first person that we talked
with at one point, when Katherine first called the desk to get hold of a
reporter didn't know the difference between a bullet and a shotgun -- a
rifle bullet and a shotgun. And there are a lot of basic important parts of
the story that required some degree of understanding. And so we were
confident that Katherine was the right one, especially because she was an
eye-witness 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.

Q By the next morning, had you spoken again to Mr. Whittington?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The next morning I talked to his wife. And then I went
to the hospital in Corpus Christi and visited with him.

Q When was that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, it was shortly after noon on Sunday.

Q Now, by that time had the word gone out to the newspaper?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I believe it had. I can't remember what time Katherine
actually talked to the reporter. She had trouble that morning actually
finding a reporter. But they finally got connected with the reporter, and
that's when the story then went out.

Q Now, it strikes me that you must have known that this was going to be a
national story --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure.

Q -- and it does raise the question of whether you couldn't have headed off
this beltway firestorm if you had put out the word to the national media,
as well as to the local newspaper so that it could post it on its website.
I mean, in retrospect, wouldn't that have been the wise course --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, who is going to do that? Are they going to take
my word for what happened? There is obviously --

Q Well, obviously, you could have put the statement out in the name of
whoever you wanted. You could put it out in the name of Mrs. Armstrong, if
you wanted to. Obviously, that's -- she's the one who made the statement.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Exactly. That's what we did. We went with Mrs.
Armstrong. We had -- she's the one who put out the statement. And she was
the most credible one to do it because she was a witness. It wasn't me in
terms of saying, here's what happened, it was --

Q Right, understood. Now, the suspicion grows in some quarters that you --
that this was an attempt to minimize it, by having it first appear in a
little paper and appear like a little hunting incident down in a remote
corner of Texas.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There wasn't any way this was going to be minimized,
Brit; but it was important that it be accurate. I do think what I've
experienced over the years here in Washington is as the media outlets have
proliferated, speed has become sort of a driving force, lots of time at the
expense of accuracy. And I wanted to make sure we got it as accurate as
possible, and I think Katherine was an excellent choice. I don't know who
you could get better as the basic source for the story than the witness who
saw the whole thing.

Q When did you first speak to -- if you spoke to Andy Card at, what,
mid-day, you said, on Sunday?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sometime Sunday morning.

Q And what about -- when did you first -- when, if ever, have you discussed
it with the President?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I talked to him about it yesterday, or Monday -- first
on Monday, and then on Tuesday, too.

Q There is reporting to the effect that some in the White House feel you
kind of -- well, look at what Scott McClellan went through the last couple
days. There's some sense -- and perhaps not unfairly so -- that you kind of
hung him out to dry. How do you feel about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, Scott does a great job and it's a tough job. It's
especially a tough job under these conditions and circumstances. I had a
bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to some extent,
it was about them -- they didn't like the idea that we called the Corpus
Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times. But it strikes me that
the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as valid a news outlet as The New
York Times is, especially for covering a major story in south Texas.

Q Well, perhaps so, but isn't there an institution here present at the
White House that has long-established itself as the vehicle through which
White House news gets out, and that's the pool?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I had no press person with me, no coverage with me, no
White House reporters with me. I'm comfortable with the way we did it,
obviously. You can disagree with that, and some of the White House press
corps clearly do. But, no, I've got nothing but good things to say about
Scott McClellan and Dan Bartlett. They've got a tough job to do and they do
it well. They urged us to get the story out. The decision about how it got
out, basically, was my responsibility.

Q That was your call.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That was my call.

Q All the way.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: All the way. It was recommended to me -- Katherine
Armstrong wanted to do it, as she said, and I concurred in that; I thought
it made good sense.

Q Now, you're talking to me today -- this is, what, Wednesday?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wednesday.

Q What about just coming out yourself Monday/Tuesday -- how come?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, part of it obviously has to do with the status of
Harry Whittington. And it's a difficult subject to talk about, frankly,
Brit. But most especially I've been very concerned about him and focused on
him and feel more comfortable coming out today because of the fact that his
circumstances have improved, he's gotten by what was a potential crisis
yesterday, with respect to the developments concerning his heart. I think
this decision we made, that this was the right way to do it.

Q Describe if you can your conversations with him, what you've said to him
and the attitude he's shown toward you in the aftermath of this.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He's been fantastic. He's a gentleman in every respect.
He oftentimes expressed more concern about me than about himself. He's been
in good spirits, unfailingly cheerful --

Q What did he say about that? You said, "expressed concern" about you --
what did he say?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, when I first saw him in the hospital, for
example, he said, look, he said, I don't want this to create problems for
you. He literally was more concerned about me and the impact on me than he
was on the fact that he'd been shot. He's a -- I guess I'd describe him as
a true Texas gentleman, a very successful attorney, successful businessman
in Austin; a gentleman in every respect of the word. And he's been superb.

Q For you, personally, how would you -- you said this was one of the worst
days of your life. How so?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: What happened to my friend as a result of my actions,
it's part of this sudden, you know, in less than a second, less time than
it takes to tell, going from what is a very happy, pleasant day with great
friends in a beautiful part of the country, doing something I love -- to,
my gosh, I've shot my friend. I've never experienced anything quite like
that before.

Q Will it affect your attitude toward this pastime you so love in the
future?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I can't say that. You know, we canceled the Sunday
hunt. I said, look I'm not -- we were scheduled to go out again on Sunday
and I said I'm not going to go on Sunday, I want to focus on Harry. I'll
have to think about it.

Q Some organizations have said they hoped you would find a less violent
pastime.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's brought me great pleasure over the years. I
love the people that I've hunted with and do hunt with; love the outdoors,
it's part of my heritage, growing up in Wyoming. It's part of who I am. But
as I say, the season is ending, I'm going to let some time pass over it and
think about the future.

Q On another subject, court filings have indicated that Scooter Libby has
suggested that his superiors -- unidentified -- authorized the release of
some classified information. What do you know about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's nothing I can talk about, Brit. This is an issue
that's been under investigation for a couple of years. I've cooperated
fully, including being interviewed, as well, by a special prosecutor. All
of it is now going to trial. Scooter is entitled to the presumption of
innocence. He's a great guy. I've worked with him for a long time, have
enormous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in
the case and it's, therefore, inappropriate for me to comment on any facet
of the case.

Q Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President
has the authority to declassify information?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There is an executive order to that effect.

Q There is.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Have you done it?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and
participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --

Q You ever done it unilaterally?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive
order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously
focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice
President.

Q There have been two leaks, one that pertained to possible facilities in
Europe; and another that pertained to this NSA matter. There are officials
who have had various characterizations of the degree of damage done by
those. How would you characterize the damage done by those two reports?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There clearly has been damage done.

Q Which has been the more harmful, in your view?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into just sort of ranking them,
then you get into why is one more damaging than the other. One of the
problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it
costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in terms of
the willingness of other intelligence services to work with us, in terms of
revealing sources and methods. And all of those elements enter into some of
these leaks.

Q Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for doing this.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Brit.

END 2:28 P.M. EST

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