Citing unnamed defense department sources, the newspaper said Army blueprints for a lighter force of 10 active divisions included plans for postings of women-men units.

A spokesman said the Army is now in discussions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's staff to see whether the 10-year-old ban in this one area should be lifted, The Times said.

The ban prohibits the Army from putting women in units that "collocate" with ground combatants.

"When that policy was made up, there was a different threat," the paper quotes Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Rodney as saying. "We imagined a more linear combat environment. Now, with the nature of asymmetrical threats, we have to relook at that policy."

Rodney cited the fighting in Iraq as typifying the new threat whereby all soldiers, support or combat, face attack by rockets, mortars, roadside bombs and ambushes, the report said.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Army has lost 24 female soldiers.

The Army is not seeking to lift the ban on women in direct combat units, such as infantry or armor, The Times reported.

What is being examined, the paper said, is the part of the exclusion rule that says mixed-sex support companies may not be positioned with ground combat teams.

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