Questions surface about vote counts

Several people were killed in violence that flared up in various regions.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Final results from Iraq's landmark referendum on a new constitution will likely not be announced until Friday at the earliest because of delays in getting counts to the capital and a wide-ranging audit of an unexpectedly high number of "yes" votes, election officials said.
The returns have raised questions over the possibility of irregularities in the balloting. With the delays, the outcome of the crucial referendum will remain up in the air possibly into next week, at a time when the government had hoped to move public attention to a new milestone: the start of the trial of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein today.
Saddam and seven senior members of his regime will go on trial in a heavily secured Baghdad courtroom for a 1982 massacre of about 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.
The lawyer for Saddam Hussein said he will ask a tribunal for a three-month adjournment of the former Iraqi dictator's trial.
Khalil al-Duleimi told The Associated Press he would ask during today's opening session for more time to prepare Saddam's defense and arrange for Arab and Western lawyers to join him in the defense team.
Al-Duleimi met with Saddam for 90 minutes Tuesday at a location other than the usual place of detention for the ousted Iraqi leader. Al-Duleimi would not elaborate.
Saddam's location has been kept secret since his capture by American troops in December 2003, but it is believed that he has been held at a U.S. facility at Baghdad International Airport.
Saddam was in high spirits and "very optimistic" on the eve of the start of his trial, al-Duleimi said.
"I have just left him five minutes ago. His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust," al-Duleimi said. He said his client would not get a "fair or honest trial at all." He questioned the legitimacy of the court.
Violence starts again
Meanwhile, insurgent attacks began to heat up again after being nearly silent on referendum day Saturday, when polling stations were heavily protected across the country.
A U.S. soldier was shot and killed in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, early Tuesday, the military said. In fighting in western Iraq, two U.S. Marines and four militants were killed Monday near the town of Rutba, not far from the Jordanian border, the military said. At least 1,979 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Gunmen killed the deputy governor of Anbar province, Talib Ibrahim, spraying his car with automatic weapons fire in Ramadi and wounding two of his bodyguards, police said. Anbar, the vast western Sunni region, is the main battleground between insurgents and U.S.-Iraqi forces.
Militants killed at least nine Iraqis elsewhere Tuesday in shootings and a mortar attack, including an adviser to the industry minister, one of the country's top Sunni Arab officials, police said.
The handcuffed and mutilated bodies of six Shiites were pulled out of a pond where they were dumped north of Baghdad, and three other bodies were discovered elsewhere in the capital.
The audit, announced by the Electoral Commission on Monday, will examine results that have raised eyebrows because they show an oddly high number of "yes" votes -- apparently including in two crucial provinces that could determine the outcome of the vote, Ninevah and Diyala.
The election commission and United Nations officials supervising the counting have made no mention of fraud and have cautioned that the unexpected votes are not necessarily incorrect.
But Sunni Arab leaders who oppose the charter have claimed the vote was fixed in Ninevah and Diyala and elsewhere to swing them to a "yes" after initial results reported by provincial officials indicated the constitution had passed.
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