Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa City, will be the first Republican to sign on to a House resolution demanding disclosure of administration documents related to what's known as the Downing Street memos, according to the Des Moines Register.

Aides to the Iowa City Republican on Friday confirmed an announcement posted on an anti-war Web site, www. afterdowningstreet.org, saying that Leach will become a co-sponsor of House Resolution 375, authored by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

The resolution, which as of Friday had 39 Democratic co-sponsors, requests that President Bush and the secretary of state send to the House all information in their possession relating to communications with the United Kingdom between Jan. 1, 2002, and Oct. 16, 2002, in connection with Iraq. This includes telephone and e-mail records, logs, calenders, minutes and memos.

Lee said in a July 21 statement that she wants answers to questions raised by the release of classified British memos. The leaked memos, written by aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, deal with the decision to invade Iraq, and have become a rallying point for those opposed to the war.

"These documents offer strong evidence that the Bush administration 'fixed' intelligence in order to mislead our country into war, evidence the administration has failed to dispute or answer," Lee said.
At a town hall meeting in July in Oakland, Calif., Lee said, "We knew all along that the president was misleading and lying to the American people about why he wanted to go to war," according to the Contra Costa Times. "We all have a right to know. . . . We're going to force them to answer the questions by any means necessary."

Both Bush and Blair, in a joint news conference earlier this summer, denied trying to "fix" the intelligence leading up to the war.