Today Vietnam enjoys peace and its economy is booming. The wars, it would seem, belong to history. The foes of yesterday have become its closest economic partners. In Hanoi, you may buy luxury items from Louis Vuitton, and American companies are the top foreign investors. As goes Coca Cola's first advertisement while returning to Vietnam a decade ago, "it's good to be back."

Yet, a wartime issue prevents full reconciliation between Hanoi and Washington: the use of Agent Orange.

The Vietnam War was not yet over when some observers began to report rumors of an unusually high level of birth defects. "There are even reports of women giving birth to monsters. Though most occurrences are not reported because of nonexistent procedures for compiling statistics," wrote Orville Schell in the March, 1971 issue of Look magazine.

Pham Thuy Linh is a pretty, full-of-life 10-year-old Vietnamese girl even though she was born armless. Like tens of thousands of other Vietnamese children born decades after the end of the war, she is nevertheless one of its casualties. During the 60s, her grandfather was spraying toxic chemicals over the territory of his communist foes. Although he died from leukemia at an early age, the curse went on.

Merely looking at these children, most of them condemned to a senseless life, is a heartbreaking experience. "Several of the children in the front row were so wizened and shrunken that they looked as if they could be my seniors. I swear to you that Jim Nachtwey has taken photographs ... that simply cannot be printed in this magazine because they would poison your sleep as they have poisoned mine," wrote Christopher Hitchens in the Aug. 2006 issue of Vanity Fair.


Agent Orange

Agent Orange was the nickname given by the U.S. military to a powerful defoliant. It consists of two herbicides, mixed in equal amount, known as 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and 2,4,5-T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid). Both were developed in the 1940s to control the growth of broad-leaf plants. A powerful dioxin, known as TCDD, is systematically produced during the manufacture of the 2,4,5-T chemical.

The U.S. military mostly relied on a dozen American companies, such as Dow and Monsanto, for the production of Agent Orange. But plants located in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand participated in its manufacture.

Constituents of Agent Orange were produced in a Union Carbide factory at Homebush Bay in Sydney, Australia. The Uniroyal plant in Elmira, Ontario produced Agent Orange. Last Year, the New Zealand government acknowledged that a plant in New Plymouth had produced the 2,4,5T herbicide for the U.S. military.


Use in Vietnam

From 1961 through 1971, The U.S. waged massive chemical warfare campaign against Vietnam known first as Operation Trail Dust, then as Operation Hades, and lastly as Operation Ranch Hand. The program was pursuing two objectives. Firstly, the military wanted to deprive the enemy from a cover under which he could hide, and secondly to deny food to them.

Between 1962 and 1964, The U.S. military tested several herbicides such Agent Orange, Agent Purple and Agent White. The colors refer to the stripes painted on their 55 gallon containers.

Last year the Canadian Defense Department admitted that the U.S. had tested Agent Orange over a New Brunswick Canadian Military Base during the early 60s, provoking the outrage of local residents.

By the end of 64, Agent Orange was chosen for the operational phase of the program. The herbicide, mixed with kerosene or diesel fuel, was mostly sprayed from modified US Air Force C-123K Provider aircrafts. The operation reached its height in 1967 and 1968, at which time an improved version known as "Orange II" was introduced.

The program was abandoned in 1971. By then, thousands of square kilometers had been sprayed with about 77 million liters of herbicide. A 2003 American report, paid for by the National Academy of Sciences, estimates that 3,181 villages were sprayed and that as many as 4.8 million people "would have been present during the spraying."

Some area were particularly targeted such the delta of the Mekong River or the city of Ben Tre where, according to Red Cross statistics, 58,000 out of 140,000 residents are victims of Agent Orange.


Effects on Human Beings

The National Toxicology Program has classified TCDD, the dioxin contained in the 2,4,5-T herbicide, as a human carcinogen. Medical studies indicate that it causes various types of cancer and genetic defects. Its use is banned in the United States.

Chloracne, soft tissue sarcomas, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are among the diseases associated with TCDD exposure. There is also some limited evidence that Agent Orange may cause respiratory cancers, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, Porphyria cutanea tarda (a type of skin disease), acute and subacute transient peripheral neuropathy, spina bifida, Type II diabetes, and acute myelogenous leukemia.

The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed all of these diseases as being caused by Agent Orange.


Lawsuits

Dow Chemical and Monsanto, who produced the bulk of Agent Orange for the U.S. military have been sued several times by the Vietnam War veterans over the last three decades.

In the late 1970s, U.S. veterans filed a lawsuit against these companies. In 1984, the case was settled out of court for a $180 million payment. The same year, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand veterans also obtained compensation in an out-of-court settlement.

In 1991, U.S. Lawmakers authorized assistance for American veterans suffering from illness caused by Agent Orange. However, they described any links between illnesses and the herbicide as presumptive, thus avoiding any admission of wrongdoing, let alone an obligation to compensate the victims.

In 1999, South Koreans filed a lawsuit against U.S. companies. They lost their case in 2002, but won an appeal in Jan. 2006. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were ordered to pay $62 million in compensation. The ruling points out that "the defoliants manufactured by the defendants had higher levels of dioxins than standard" and states the scientifically established "causal relationship" between Agent Orange and 11 diseases.

On Jan. 31, 2004, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange filed a lawsuit in a U.S. Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, against the U.S. companies that produced Agent Orange.

On March 10, 2005, the District Court judge Jack Weinstein dismissed the suit on the basis that Agent Orange was not considered a poison under international law at the time of its use by the U.S. On Sept. 30, 2005, the Vietnamese Association lodged an appeal.


Conclusion

U.S. government officials and U.S. Courts continue to deny the existence of a link between Agent Orange and health hazards. They attribute the high occurrence of birth defects to other environmental roots.

The U.S. denial of any wrongdoing in Vietnam infuriates score of the victims of Agent Orange for evidence and reason point to a systematic convergence.

The south-central town of Sathay was heavily sprayed with herbicide during the war. A recent study indicates that the probability of birth defects in Sathay is 20 times above national average.

A quarter of a century ago, Duc Nguyen and his conjoined twin were born in Sathay. Duc Nguyen has one leg and suffers severe bone distortions. His non-cognitive brother spends most of his life tied up to a bed, reflexively gargling on his own saliva. Analyses revealed that their mother's tissues contained unusually high level of dioxin.

"I find it ironic that on one hand Americans put [Saddam Hussein] on trial for using biological warfare, but in another country where they sprayed chemicals for warfare, they neglect their responsibility," said Duc Nguyen.