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Tests confirm sarin in roadside bomb

WASHINGTON - Comprehensive testing has confirmed the presence of the chemical weapon sarin in the remains of a roadside bomb discovered this month in Baghdad, government officials said Tuesday.

The determination, made by a laboratory in the United States that officials would not identify, verifies what earlier, less-thorough field tests had found: The bomb was made from an artillery shell designed to disperse the deadly nerve agent on the battlefield, the two officials said, speaking to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The origin of the shell remains unclear, and finding that out is a priority for the U.S. military, a defense official familiar with the finding said.

Some analysts worry the 155mm artillery shell, found rigged as a bomb on May 15, may be part of a larger stockpile of Iraqi chemical weapons that insurgents can now use. But no more have turned up, and several military officials have said the shell may have been an older one that predated the 1991 Gulf War.

It likewise is not known whether the bombers knew they had a chemical weapon. Military officials have said the shell bore no labels to indicate it was anything except a normal explosive shell, the type used to make scores of roadside bombs in Iraq.

No one was injured in the shell's initial detonation.

WASHINGTON - In a sign of the Iraq war's strain on the U.S. military, the Army is planning to send into combat thousands of soldiers whose normal job is to play the role of the "enemy" at training ranges in California and Louisiana, defense officials said Tuesday.

The Pentagon also is considering adding yet another National Guard brigade, the 155th Separate Armored Brigade from Mississippi, to the mix of active-duty and reserve units designated for the next rotation of ground forces into Iraq this year and in early 2005, other Army officials said.

With nearly every other major combat unit either committed to or just returned from Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army is planning to call on two battalions and one engineer company - about 2,500 soldiers - from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, which serves as a professional enemy force at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. The regiment last saw combat during Vietnam.

Similarly, the 1st Battalion of the 509th Infantry, which acts as the opposition force for light infantry and special operations training at Fort Polk, La., is being called to Iraq, according to two Army officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

The 509th Infantry has not seen combat since World War II.

DENVER - Four U.S. soldiers will be reprimanded for forcing two Iraqi detainees to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River earlier this year, a military spokesman said Tuesday.

There have been questions about whether one of the Iraqis died, but a Fort Carson spokesman, Lt. Col. Thomas Budzyna, said no one was killed.

The soldiers, based at Fort Carson, were part of a 3rd Brigade Combat Team led by Lt. Col. Nate Sassaman, a star quarterback at West Point in the mid 1980s, Budzyna said.

Budzyna said he had no other information, and Sassaman did not return a call to his office.

Budzyna also said that members of another Fort Carson unit, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, are being questioned about the deaths of two Iraqi prisoners: Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57, who was captured by the regiment in October, and Abdul Jaleel, 46.

The military has said Mowhoush died during interrogation Nov. 26 from asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression. Jaleel died Jan. 9 at a post near Al Asad, Iraq, of blunt force injuries and asphyxia, the Army said last week.