iptables causes connection stall

We are having connection stall issues on many of our http servers. As a test I have created a script that connects to the webserver using curl and tries do download a txt file of about 3mb size.

Every now and then the speed goes down to 0 and the connection hangs.

When I disable iptables the problem resolves and everything works ok.

iptables -vL
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
 pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination
   28  2080 ACCEPT     all  --  any    any     anywhere             anywhere            state RELATED,ESTABLISHED
    0     0 ACCEPT     icmp --  any    any     anywhere             anywhere
    0     0 ACCEPT     all  --  lo     any     anywhere             anywhere
    0     0 ACCEPT     tcp  --  any    any     anywhere             anywhere            state NEW tcp dpt:ssh
    0     0 ACCEPT     tcp  --  any    any     anywhere             anywhere            state NEW tcp dpt:http
   17  1924 REJECT     all  --  any    any     anywhere             anywhere            reject-with icmp-host-prohibited

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
 pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination
    0     0 REJECT     all  --  any    any     anywhere             anywhere            reject-with icmp-host-prohibited

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT 15 packets, 1564 bytes)
 pkts bytes target     prot opt in     out     source               destination

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There is couple of routers and firewalls in between.

Any ideas what this could cause?

Ah. I use Centos 6.3 Kernel 2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64 Iptables version is: iptables-1.4.7-5.1.el6_2.x86_64