Hanoi (VNA) – Sixty years have passed since the US army
dropped tens of millions of extremely toxic chemicals on various areas across
the south of Vietnam, but their devastating impact still lingers, destroying
the environment and claiming the lives of many generations of Agent Orange (AO)
victims.
About 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed to AO,
and more than 3 million others who are their second, third, and even fourth
generations have still suffered from pains and losses even when the war ended
nearly 50 years ago.
In 1961, then US President J. Kennedy authorised chemical
warfare, aside from the “hot war”, in Vietnam.
To conceal their plan from the public, the US Department of
Defence used the code name “Operation Ranch Hand” and spread a false belief
among US troops and people that the chemicals used were just normal herbicides
and defoliants aimed to uncover the enemy’s hiding places and minimise
casualties for the US army and its alliance’s troops, and that they were not
hazardous to animals and did not have considerable impact on human health.
However, it is a fact that the chemical warfare waged by the
US in Vietnam was the largest and longest one causing the most destructive
consequences in human history.
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