The Pentagon says that up to 2 tons of sarin gas may have been released when the Kemisiyah ammunition depot in southern Iraq was destroyed by U.S. Army engineers in March 1991.

"I think the biggest hope is it could shift research in ways that could be more fruitful in evaluating methods and identifying treatments," Golomb said. Golomb said she has been working on research in this area since 1999, but it has taken time to gain momentum because the bulk of research had focused on wartime stress.

The Pentagon admitted in 1997 that as many as 100,000 U.S. service members may have been exposed to nerve gas when U.S. combat engineers blew up the Kamisiyah ammunition depot in southern Iraq in March 1991, shortly after the war.

" The new panel was appointed in 2002 by Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi in accordance with a law passed in 1998 but never acted on by the Clinton administration.

Committee members said release of the report, which was previously described in the Oct. 1 issue os Science magazine, was set for earlier this month but postponed because of scheduling problems. Some members said they thought the Bush administration might be reluctant to release the report during a tight presidential election campaign as U.S. troops are again deployed in Iraq, but officials denied that.

Through a spokeswoman, Principi, who was in Michigan yesterday for the groundbreaking of a new veterans cemetery, praised the committee's work.

"I'm looking forward to studying the committee's report and working with them to ensure adequate research funding to find answers to these perplexing medical issues," he said. Principi, through the spokeswoman, said the department was already providing disability benefits for some veterans who have developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, based on studies finding the veterans have nearly double the risk of ALS as veterans who did not go to the Persian Gulf.

Staffwriter Eleanor Yang contributed to this report.