The U.S. launched on Saturday a $183 million cleanup at a former Vietnam storage site for Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used in the nations' bitter war, which years later is still blamed for severe birth defects, cancers and disabilities.
Located outside Ho Chi Minh City, Bien Hoa air base — the latest site scheduled for rehabilitation after Danang air base's cleanup last year — was one of the main storage grounds for Agent Orange and was only hastily cleared by soldiers near the war's end more than four decades ago.
U.S. forces sprayed 80 million liters (21 million gallons) of Agent Orange over South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 in a desperate bid to flush out Viet Cong communist guerrillas by depriving them of tree cover and food.