News services are currently reporting:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Several members of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution said Monday they had agreed to seek a 10-day extension to the Aug. 15 deadline to try to complete negotiations over the highly contested charter.
According to Juan Cole, posting a short time ago, this is illegal:
UPDATE: AP now reporting Iraqi parliament voted "unanimously" to delay constitution deadline by 7 days....Every indication is that a final text of Iraq's permanent constitution just won't be reported out of the drafting committee in time to have parliament vote on it on Monday. Now Iraqi politicians are talking about having parliament amend the interim constitution to allow a delay of say, two weeks. In fact, according to the Transitional Administrative Law, if the committee did not ask for an extension by August 1 (which it was pressured not to do by the Bush administration); and if the parliament did not approve the new constitution by August 15; then parliament should be dissolved.
