BAGHDAD - In an audiotape marking the 35th anniversary of the Baath Party coup Thursday, a voice purported to be that of Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to continue a "holy war" against U.S. forces. Even so, the now-banned holiday was an unusually quiet day for American troops in Iraq.

The voice on the audiotape, broadcast on two Arab satellite television networks, said the tape had been recorded three days earlier to commemorate the holiday. Saddam's last ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed al-Douri, told one of the networks that the voice sounded like that of his former boss.

American helicopters filled the Baghdad skies in the late afternoon, presumably as security for Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy secretary of defense.

Wolfowitz met with the top American administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and with Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. commander of coalition forces in Iraq. He was to tour the country to see other commanders and increasingly demoralized U.S. soldiers.

"I look forward to seeing firsthand evidence of what it means for the Iraqi people to be liberated from decades of brutal repression," Wolfowitz said after stepping off an Air Force C-17 cargo plane following a 12-hour overnight flight from Washington.

The audio recording criticized the new Governing Council of Iraq and said President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair lied to the world in order to justify their war on Iraq.

"What will they say to their people and to mankind? What will the chorus of lies say to those that backed them?" said the voice. "What will they say to the world after they devised the scenario of lies against Iraq's people, leadership and culture?"

"The lies were known to the U.S. president and the British prime minister when they decided to launch a war and aggression," said the tape.

Bush and Blair have come under increasing criticism at home over some of the intelligence used in the run-up to the war.

The speaker said the Governing Council, handpicked by Bremer, was created "by the will of the foreigners, therefore it is the servant of the foreigner and not a servant of the people. Anything issued by the occupation is to weaken Iraq."

"Anything issued by occupation is to weaken Iraq. The only solution ... is a jihad (holy war) to resist the occupation," he said.

The tape appeared to be new, since the Governing Council was established Sunday. But there was no way to independently authenticate who made the recording, or when. U.S. intelligence officials said they were analyzing it but had no conclusions yet.

In the restive city of Fallujah, just west of Baghdad, a crowd of 100 people waved Kalashnikovs to celebrate the Baath coup that led to Saddam's formal rise to power 11 years later. The Governing Council banned the holiday as one of its first actions.

"Saddam, we'll sacrifice our blood and souls for you," the men chanted.

In Baghdad, streets normally filled with American Humvees and tanks were strangely quiet, perhaps part of an effort to avoid confrontation. While force visibility was down, rumors filled the city: some that Saddam would make some sort of personal appearance after weeks in hiding; others that he had been captured by U.S. forces. There was no evidence either rumor was true.

Also Thursday, the military announced the discovery of yet another mass grave, this one believed filled with as many as 400 Kurdish women and children allegedly executed by Saddam.

Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division discovered the grave on the side of a dry riverbed in Hatra, 200 miles north of Baghdad. An assessment team was sent to the site.

Some 25 sets of remains - all women and children - have been pulled from the grave, each with a bullet hole in the skull. The military said the size of the area leads them to believe it contains between 200 and 400 bodies.

Since the end of the war, dozens of mass graves have been discovered - many of them containing hundreds of bodies. The United Nations is investigating the killing or disappearance of at least 300,000 Iraqis believed murdered by Saddam's regime.

Also Thursday, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority announced the start of bidding to provide mobile telecommunications services in Iraq. The authority said it would award up to three licenses: one for the north, one for central Iraq, and one for the south, and that the licenses would be good for two years.

Iraq's phone system was shattered by U.S. bombing, and could take many months to be brought back into service. Most feel getting a mobile system established will be quicker.

On the diplomatic front, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said Moscow is prepared to consider a U.S. proposal for a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at bringing more international troops to Iraq, and would consider sending its own peacekeepers under a U.N. mandate, the Interfax news agency reported.

The United States has been eager to see other countries send peacekeeping forces to Iraq. Its occupying force of 160,000 has lost more than 30 members to hostile action since Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1.

The Pentagon on Thursday raised the number of U.S. personnel killed in combat since the start of the Iraq war on March 20 to 147 - equaling the total killed in combat during the 1991 Gulf War.