Three US soldiers have been charged in the drowning death of an Iraqi man who was forced to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River north of Baghdad in January, the military said.

Four American soldiers have been reprimanded for forcing Iraqi prisoners to jump in the Tigris River last year, a military spokesman said today.

President George Bush signed a $401bn (€341bn) defence authorisation bill today, saying members of the US armed forces are facing “a great and historic task” in confronting and defeating the forces of terrorism.

GUNMEN opened fire on American troops at a checkpoint early yesterday, killing two US soldiers and wounding nine others in the troubled town of Fallujah – a hotbed of support for Saddam Hussein’s fallen Ba’ath Party, the US military said.