ACCOUNTABILITY CORNER
Iraq missed the Aug. 15 deadline for a draft constitution. Who predicted the delay and who didn’t?
-- STEPHEN W. STROMBERG
“We’re going to stay on that timetable.”
-- George W. Bush, June 24
“It will be impossible to write it in the next six weeks.”
-- Columnist Charles Krauthammer, July 4
“It seems unlikely that [Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds] can find common ground on a constitution by Aug. 15.”
-- Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador, in the New York Review of Books, July 14
“Eight days are not a little. There’s enough time.”
-- Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish member of the constitutional drafting panel, in The Times, Aug. 8
“They will finish it tomorrow.”
-- U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to ABC News, Aug. 14
“We have finished 75% of the issues, and we will complete the remaining 25% today.”
-- Bahaa al Araji, a Shiite panel member, to Reuters, Aug. 15