During the runup to the invasion of Iraq I could never understand how people could fall for the war-mongering talk about chemical weapons. At the time I was in Vietnam, seeing first hand what American chemical weapons had done. Seeing young children of 10 or 11 suffering from dioxin and then hearing the chicken hawks scream about Iraq's chemical weapons (that the US sold to Iraq) was hard to swallow. If only those demanding war had a clue about the lasting impact of their actions.
A few months after leaving Vietnam I was taking my father to the VA in the US where I met vets who were on permanent disability due to exposure to the same chemicals. What a horrible, lasting impact those chemicals have had on the world. Decades after the US left Vietnam, it's still a problem.
New environmental tests confirm extremely high levels of dioxin, the toxic ingredient of Agent Orange, in people, fish and soil near a former U.S. air base where American troops stored the herbicide during the Vietnam War.
"Time is of the essence" to finish cleaning up the site, now home to the Danang airport, where dioxin levels in the soil, sediment and fish were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted levels, the survey by the Canadian environmental firm Hatfield Consultants said.
