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Gary Myers, one of Vela's lawyers, claimed this week that Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to "bait" their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, then kill those who picked up the items. He said his client was acting on orders.

Asked about the existence of the "baiting program," Capt. Craig Drummond, Sandoval's military defense attorney, said it was unclear "what programs were going on out there and when," especially "if there were things that were done that made the rules of engagement not clear."

On Saturday, Iraqi soldiers acting on a tip tried to intercept the suicide driver as his pickup truck headed toward Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. As the Iraqi Humvee neared the truck, the driver detonated his explosive payload, according to the officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Three soldiers and three civilians were killed, the official said.

Late Friday, police officials said Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos handed over nine decomposing bodies to a hospital in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Earlier Friday, Iraq's prime minister told The Associated Press that a Senate proposal seen in Iraq as an attempt to split the country into regions according to religious or ethnic divisions would be a "catastrophe."

The nonbinding Senate resolution calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions under control of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis in a power-sharing agreement similar to the one that ended the 1990s war in Bosnia. U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., was a prime sponsor of the measure.

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