Java – spring application does not start: SAXParseException: Document root element “beans”, must match DOCTYPE root “null”

I just deployed an application to tomcat version 6.0.32 and I get this error from spring. I don't think the xml is invalid

PAS: 2011-12-28 14:19:08,585 INFO [org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader] –
PAS: 2011-12-28 14:19:08,592 ERROR [org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader] –
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Line 15 in XML document from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/config/applicationContext.xml] is invalid; nested exception is org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Document root element "beans", must match DOCTYPE root "null".
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Document root element "beans", must match DOCTYPE root "null".
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:195)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.error(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:131)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:384)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:318)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.rootElementSpecified(XMLDTDValidator.java:1621)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.handleStartElement(XMLDTDValidator.java:1900)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.startElement(XMLDTDValidator.java:764)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1363)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$ContentDriver.scanRootElementHook(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:1318)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:3104)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:922)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:648)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:511)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:808)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:737)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:119)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:235)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:284)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.doLoadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:222)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:173)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:148)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:129)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:145)
at org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlWebApplicationContext.java:126)
at org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlWebApplicationContext.java:94)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.refreshBeanFactory(AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.java:89)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:262)
at org.springframework.web.context.support.AbstractRefreshableWebApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractRefreshableWebApplicationContext.java:139)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:252)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:190)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:49)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4205)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4704)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:799)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:779)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:601)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:943)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWARs(HostConfig.java:778)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:504)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1315)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:324)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:142)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1061)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:840)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:463)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:525)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:754)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:595)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)

XMl is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
  xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
  xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"   xmlns:security="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"

  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd 
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-2.5.xsd
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/util
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.5.xsd
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/security 
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-2.5.xsd">

<context:property-placeholder  location="WEB-INF/passport.properties, WEB-INF/config/server.properties"/>
<util:properties id="props" location="WEB-INF/passport.properties" />

<context:component-scan base-package="util" />

<bean id="passportConfig" class="util.PassportBaseConfig"
    p:configLocation="WEB-INF/" autowire="no" factory-method="getInstance"
    init-method="init" p:userDAO-ref="passportUserDao" p:teamDAO-ref="passportTeamDao" 
    p:serverId="${serverId}">
    <constructor-arg ref="props" />

</bean>