IDowning Street Memo Update

Inside Bay Area - Oakland Tribune - Local News: "Pair of congressional war hearings set for today
House International Relations Committee will debate Lee's resolution on pre-Iraq info
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER

Two Bay Area lawmakers have hearings today on their questions about the Iraq war — a formal hearing on how it got started, and an informal hearing on how to bring the troops home.

The House International Relations Committee is scheduled to debate and vote on a resolution introduced by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, calling upon the Bush administration to release all information related to its meetings with British officials in 2002 before the congressional vote authorizing use of force in Iraq.

Lee introduced the resolution in July during the furor over the so-called Downing Street Memo. Apparently penned by a foreign-policy aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair, the memo contains minutes from a July 2002 meeting in which high-ranking British officials discuss how 'intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' in President Bush's war push.

More than 130 members of Congress wrote to President Bush and more than 575,000 people signed petitions this summer demanding that the White House answer questions raised by the memo, to no avail.

Lee's resolution had 70 co-sponsors Tuesday including lone Republican James Leach of Iowa. Lee's spokesman said 10 more lawmakers were expected to sign on by today's hearing.

'The U.S. is currently at war in Iraq under an authority conferred to President Bush by the U.S. Congress,' Lee said in a news release this week. 'It is not only Congress' prerogative, it is our responsibility to

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make sure that the authority to use force was not granted under circumstances that were deliberately misleading.'"