-One of the most controversial American operations in Vietnam
-Just the name of it evokes all sorts of horrible images: Agent Orange.
During the Vietnam War, Americans were told that spraying millions of acres of dense jungle
with Agent Orange would deprive the Viet Cong of cover — and save GI's lives.
But in the decades since, the herbicide’s use in Vietnam
has been blamed for a creating a human catastrophe among veterans
-I died in Vietnam and didn’t even know it.
and the Vietnamese.
-Vietnam is convinced that these children are just the latest victims
of the deadly chemical dioxin in Agent Orange.
Now, decades later, the fight over Agent Orange continues to take new turns.
-Americans might like to consider our war in Vietnam to be ancient history.
It's not ancient history.
During the Vietnam War, the US military fought an invisible enemy:
Viet Cong fighters who quickly attacked, then slipped back into the dense jungle.
In 1962, American forces responded with Operation Ranch Hand,
over the next nine years spraying an area about the size of Massachusetts with defoliants
— the most notorious being Agent Orange.
-It was one way we were going to win the Vietnam War: dump herbicides all over the jungle so
the Viet Cong would come out and fight.
To both expose Viet Cong hiding places and deprive them of life-sustaining crops,
large swaths of Vietnam were left barren.
-Enough food to feed 600,000 people for a year has been destroyed.
Despite this sudden devastation, US officials said that the spraying created no lasting harm,
and many agreed that it was helping turn the tide on the Viet Cong.
-What they are doing amounts to a pretty important form of conservation in itself:
the saving of American lives.
But the Communist North Vietnamese presented a different picture of Agent Orange,
one that became increasingly horrific as time wore on.
-North Vietnam charged today that defoliants have produced many incidences of miscarriages,
congenital defects, and monstrosities among children.
The US government initially dismissed these charges as Communist propaganda.
But following a study that linked dioxin, a contaminant in Agent Orange,
to birth defects in laboratory animals, the spraying of this herbicide was discontinued in 1970.
The herbicide was also eventually banned in the US.
That did not stop the growing concern about Agent Orange, which took a new turn a few
years after the last American soldier had left Vietnam in 1975.
-Milton Ross, a special forces advisor from Plei Ku,
has a son born without the tips of his fingers.
-Frank More is nearly dead from cancer. He thinks the cancer was caused by chemical defoliants
he was exposed to as a soldier in Vietnam.
-Thousands of Vietnam veterans think Agent Orange is now killing them.
Bobby Muller, a former Marine Lieutenant and veterans activist, was
among those who demanded that something be done.
-One day I said OK, I’ve got a mouth, I’ll use it. And I just started to talk.
My voice got amplified and I became a spokesman.
But, he says the government dragged its feet, as it had with other veteran’s issues
during the 1970s and 1980s.
-I don’t think people appreciate how negative Vietnam was an experience
and how nobody wanted to deal with it.
-More than 1300 Vietnam vets have filed claims for Agent Orange contamination.
Not one has been honored.
-We want an investigation of the Veterans Administration.
We want the American people to listen to us.
-The Vietnam veterans for years were screaming for attention, screaming for help.
-Gentlemen we can’t wait 20, 30, 40 years.
The government said a lack of scientific consensus stood in the way of much being done.
-We don't mean to say there isn't an Agent Orange effect. But at this point in time,
we don't seem to see anything that confirms that there is something there specifically.
-The Ranch Handers are not dying off like flies.
But the veteran's notched a victory after it was revealed that some of the herbicide's
makers had struggled over evidence of its potential dangers as far back as 1965.
-Just hours before thousands of Vietnam veterans were supposed to be represented in court against
seven chemical companies, there was an out-of-court settlement.
-Over the next six years, the fund will pay out at least a quarter of a billion dollars
to veterans and their families, including children not yet born.
This was only a partial victory.
-None of this, say the defendants means an admission of their liability for the veteran's injuries.
-Agent Orange was a safe product when it was used in the Vietnam War,
and it’s a safe product today.
But the veteran's continued to fight, and gain ground.
In 1990, the Veteran's Administration released a sharply critical report, which found that
even if the scientific studies lacked consensus, there was enough evidence to compensate veterans
for Agent Orange claims. Another announcement from the VA followed closely behind.
-With today's decision the government admits for the first time Agent Orange may well have
caused cancer: in this case, a rare form called soft tissue sarcoma.
-The government has now agreed to pay $8 million a year to veterans.
Vietnam’s American veterans were finally making headway
in their long battle against Agent Orange.
-Today I am announcing the normalization of diplomatic relationships with Vietnam.
This was a historic announcement for both the United States and Vietnam. But behind
the fanfare, one issue from the war remained as divisive as it had when
Muller first sought to encourage reconciliation in 1981.
-This past week four American combat veterans of Vietnam returned there.
-As we anticipated, the Vietnamese doctors that we met with very much
share our concerns about the effects of Agent Orange.
In a poor country like Vietnam, where people confront a multitude health issues, it was
hard to figure out exactly what had caused the birth defects exhibited by its children,
but the Vietnamese government insisted the cause was Agent Orange.
-Although that war was long ago, there is lingering anger about the United States’ use of a
controversial defoliant spread by American aircraft on the jungles there.
-An epidemic of birth defects, brain damage and rare cancers still affecting
hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese today.
-There was always an issue that would come up in our discussions with the Vietnamese
that was clearly a source of continuing resentment and anger, and that was Agent Orange.
In 2006, with this bitterness still fresh, Bobby Muller asked Thao Nguyen-Griffiths,
one of his advisors, to survey families like the Tans,
who blamed Agent Orange for their children’s birth defects.
According to environmental studies, high levels of dioxin could still be found
in the soil in certain areas, and had seeped into nearby lakes.
-But, you know, people access the lake. Dioxin is contained in the fatty tissue of fish and duck
and there was a high level of dioxin in people’s blood sample.
Muller and Nguyen turned to Senator Patrick Leahy for help pushing America
to clean up areas that were still contaminated by the dioxin in Agent Orange.
-Senator Leahy was not interested in the excuses and he felt we had a
responsibility. Fortunately, there were people in higher places who agreed with him.
In 2006, the group saw a window of opportunity as President George Bush
was preparing to visit Vietnam. A few phrases referencing the contamination
were inserted into a prepared statement. -It was an opening. It was the first time
that a high level official, the President of the United States, had spoken on this subject.
This opportunity was seized. Six years later, in a joint project, the US
government began cleaning up the first Agent Orange hotspot at the Danang Airport.
-Today's ceremony marks the start of a project between..
-To actually see the two governments are taking steps to tangibly destroy this terribly
dangerous poison was very significant. -This is an historic landmark. We’re
cleaning up this mess! At the airport, where Agent Orange was
once stored, they’ve completed building what amounts to a massive concrete oven.
Contaminated soil was put inside and will be cooked for several months
under immense heat. Scientists say the process will finally render it harmless.
-What we’ve learned is that you just can’t turn your back on civilians. The price of
doing so is simply creating more resentment among the very population
whose support you need to carry out the mission.
But many more contaminated sites remain in Vietnam. And back in the US, while most veterans
are now covered for 14 illnesses presumed to be related to Agent Orange exposure, some
veterans are still trying to get those benefits. The fight over Agent Orange continues.