DICK CHENEY was forced last night to break a five-day silence over the hunting accident in which he shot a 78-year-old Texas lawyer, to quell growing concerns among White House aides and fellow Republicans over his handling of the incident.

Mr Cheney, one of the most secretive US Vice-Presidents in history and a man who loathes talking to the press, gave his first televised interview since the accident. He admitted drinking one beer shortly before the shooting and took full blame for the accident, describing it as “one of the worst days of my life”.

Mr Cheney has been under intense pressure to explain why it took nearly 24 hours to make public news of the Saturday accident, in which a fellow hunter and friend, Harry Whittington, was shot in the face and chest. Some Democrats have accused Mr Cheney of trying to orchestrate a cover-up.

Scott McClellan, President Bush’s spokesman, has been attacked by journalists for failing to alert them to the news until Sunday, although even he was not told about the accident until Sunday morning.

Mr Cheney, interviewed on the Fox News Channel a day after Mr Whittington suffered a minor heart attack in hospital, took full responsibility for the accident and defended his decision not to disclose it until the following day.

“I’m the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry,” Mr Cheney said. After off-the-record briefings to reporters from associates of Mr Cheney’s that suggested Mr Whittington had been to blame for the accident, Mr Cheney added: “It was not Harry’s fault. You can’t blame anybody else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.” He added: “The image of him falling is something I’ll never be able to get out of my mind. It was one of the worst days of my life.”

When asked if anyone in the hunting party had been drinking, Mr Cheney said: “We’d taken a break . . . I had a beer at lunch.”

The Vice-President insisted that when they resumed the hunt after about 3pm, “nobody was drinking, nobody was under the influence”.

Mr Cheney has faced a barrage of criticism for allowing the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, to report the accident to a local newspaper, and not to the national press.

But he was unapologetic last night. He said that he had none of his press team with him at the time, and thought that letting the owner talk to the local press “made good sense”, because she was an eyewitness, she grew up on the ranch and she was “an acknowledged expert in all of this” as a past head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He added: “I thought it was the right call. I still do.”

Privately, aides to Mr Bush have been increasingly concerned by the five-day silence. Although he has not explicitly criticised Mr Cheney, Mr McClellan has reminded reporters how swiftly he dealt with Mr Bush’s bicycle accident at the G8 summit in Scotland last year. Marlin Fitzwater, who was press secretary to Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush, was less circumspect. He said that he was appalled at the way Mr Cheney had handled the incident.

As Vice-President, Mr Cheney has become increasingly cocooned from media attention. His movements are often treated as a bigger secret than those of Mr Bush.

He has gone to the Supreme Court rather than reveal the identity of who lobbied him on the Energy Bill. His relationship with Halliburton, his former firm which secured many contracts for postwar Iraq, remains shrouded in the type of fog that encourages the conspiracy theorists.

Mr Cheney, one of the most powerful US Vice-Presidents, has built up his own semiautonomous power structures in the White House, with his own miniature version of a national security council staff which debates policy in parallel to that of Mr Bush.

A prominent Republican in Washington said: “I think Cheney operates in his own world and 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.” Democrats said the incident showed that Mr Cheney was operating in a “bunker of secrecy”.

Doctors said that Mr Whittington was “sitting up in bed” yesterday and planning to do some legal work from hospital.

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