Lee's Iraq war resolution dies in committee

One-vote loss goes mostly along party lines
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER


A Bay Area lawmaker's effort to force the White House to release documents about justifications for the war in Iraq was killed in committee Wednesday.

The House International Relations Committee voted 22-21 against a resolution introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, calling upon the White House to hand over all information related to meetings with British officials in 2002 before the congressional vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq.

It would have been a straight party-line vote but for Rep. James Leach,

R-Iowa, who joined the Democratic minority in supporting the resolution; Rep. Ron Paul,

R-Texas, voted "present."

Lee had introduced the resolution in July during the furor over the so-called "Downing Street Memo." Apparently penned by a foreign-policy aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the memo details a July 2002 meeting in which high-ranking British officials discussed how "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" in the Bush administration's push toward war. >>>continued

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