By CHRIS TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. Two people were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported.

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq (news - web sites). "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.

"A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said.

The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he said.

The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in last year's invasion.

The round was an old `binary-type' shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.

"The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites)," Kimmitt said. "Two explosive ordinance team members were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round."

In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult unleashed sarin gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. In February of this year, Japanese courts convicted the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and sentence him to be executed.

Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas.

Nerve gases work by inhibiting key enzymes in the nervous system, blocking their transmission. Small exposures can be treated with antidotes, if administered quickly.

Antidotes to nerve gases similar to sarin are so effective that top poison gas researchers predict they eventually will cease to be a war threat.

That's a U.S. munition.,.

Sounds like the bad guys did smuggel some stuff into Iraq.

$115 billion tax dollars spent, tens of thousands of dead innocent Iraqui citizens, a foreign policy self-detonation that has set America back a hundred years, 780 US military deaths, an important and ancient land littered with DU radiation.

Yep, finding that shell was well worth it. Bush must finally be having a good day.

We're coming up on the national election, aren't we? It's either going to be WMDs, or catching Osama, or possibly both.

The real point that anyone saying "I told you so" must ignore is that Bush WAS guessing at the time that he invaded Iraq. He knowingly lied to the American public to justify a military invasion. We cannot know what his real intentions were, because he LIED. If you're going to celebrate this development, you may as well focus on Bush's amazing powers of prognostication, because he had no intel to confirm his assertions about WMDs in Iraq.

So, the weapon was of US origin. Good catch.

An artillery shell! Now we need to follow the trail of bread crumbs back to the hidden arsenal. We must rescue Hansel & Gretal before they're made into ginger bread.

Seriously, if possible, if our own military can loose 800 billion worth of hardware IN ONE YEAR we should find out how they managed to effect such accurate accounting. BTW, I wonder how this shell was marked? Made in the USA?

$115 billion tax dollars spent, tens of thousands of dead innocent Iraqui citizens, a foreign policy self-detonation that has set America back a hundred years, 780 US military deaths, an important and ancient land littered with DU radiation.

It should've been 900 billion spent, every last Arab killed, every Middle East country (all of them impotent, Stone Age lands) (save Israel) nuked, all the oil seized for the United States and death camps for amerikkan liberals.

Enjoy a lemon wedge with the satire, hippie.

$115 billion tax dollars spent, tens of thousands of dead innocent Iraqui citizens, a foreign policy self-detonation that has set America back a hundred years, 780 US military deaths, an important and ancient land littered with DU radiation.

It should've been 900 billion spent, every last Arab killed, every Middle East country (all of them impotent, Stone Age lands) (save Israel) nuked, all the oil seized for the United States and death camps for amerikkan liberals.

Enjoy a lemon wedge with the satire, hippie.

Guess they got smart, used to be the would "find" WMDs and then further tests would show it wasn't WMDs. Solved the probelem by blowing up the evidence and then saying yup it was a WMD by golly.

Also seems odd as no one was hurt by the gas from the "WMD".