“President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have quietly agreed to begin negotiating a framework for the two nations’ long-term relationship. This agreement, according to Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, Bush’s chief White House adviser on Iraq, will include a long-term U.S. troop presence, U.S. security guarantees and other economic and political support. Lute says the agreement should be worked out by July 2008, just months before the November presidential election and the inauguration of a new president.

“Forgive us for thinking there are huge problems both with this agreement and with the timeline for its completion.

“… with Gen. Lute making it clear that this long-term agreement will be negotiated exclusively between the Bush administration and the al-Maliki government, with perhaps the approval of the Iraqi parliament, Congress and the American people will have little say in what the relationship will be between Iraq and the United States long after Bush has left the White House.

“To re-establish its sovereignty, Iraq understandably wants to end the 2003 mandate in the near future and abolish other restrictions. In their place would come the new agreement between Iraq and the United States.

“We have been critical of the Bush administration’s exclusion of Congress — unfortunately many times with Congress’ acquiescence — in decisions that morally, if not constitutionally, should be shared. ...

“With a presidential election campaign in full gear, the president would do well to win Congress’ support for any extended Iraq policy or, better yet, allow a new president — Republican or Democrat — to establish his or her own Iraq policy dictated by the outcome of a national election.”

— San Diego Union-Tribune, “President and Congress should be involved,” on Tuesday

“If a runner had to start a race with one arm tied behind his back, wouldn’t that be an unfair disadvantage?

“Yet that’s essentially what’s happening to thousands of valley children as they step out on the road to success in school and in life. They are cheated from the start because they haven’t had the benefits of breast-feeding.

“The sad part is that the people we most trust to be the experts on good health — the valley’s hospitals — are shamefully behind others around the state in implementing procedures that start our babies off with this important — and free — advantage.

— Fresno Bee, “Valley hospitals must do a better job of promoting breast-feeding” on Tuesday