Scorched Earth
Page 2
Test runs demonstrate that herbicides are highly effective. No more hiding for the Vietcong. Herbicides will drive them into the open, where they will be obliterated. As the war escalates, the military expands the defoliation campaign, spraying enemy supply routes, footpaths, the Demilitarized Zone, the Mekong Delta, and the perimeters of US military bases.
By 1965, 45 percent of the total spraying is directed at crops. If the military suspects that the Vietcong are taking food from a particular area, those fields are completely destroyed. Fields used exclusively by civilians are also doused with herbicides, and in 1967 alone the military uses 20 million liters of herbicides—85 percent to kill forests and 15 percent to destroy crops.4
President Kennedy does not live to see the full-scale use of chemical warfare in Vietnam, and historians can only speculate as to whether he would have supported a campaign that clearly violated international laws such as the Genocide Convention, laws that forbid wanton attacks on civilians in times of war.
During the first year of the defoliation campaign, the White House has to approve all targets. Then, in 1962, the South Vietnamese government agrees to assume ownership of herbicides once they are delivered: a clever way of making it appear that the Diem regime, not the United States, is really responsible for and directing chemical warfare in Vietnam.
In 1963, journalist Richard Dudman publishes a series of articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other newspapers, calling the use of herbicides in Vietnam “dirty-war tactics.” He writes that the military is not only using herbicides to kill trees, but to poison rice fields. After reading Dunham’s articles, Wisconsin Congressman Robert W. Kastenmeier writes to President Kennedy, calling herbicides chemical weapons, and urging him to end the defoliation campaign.
In 1964, a Washington Post story describes the “accidental spraying of a friendly village in southern Vietnam which destroyed the rice and pineapple upon which people depended for their livelihood.” The next day, editorializing that herbicides pose a risk to Vietnam’s civilians, the Post calls for an end to the defoliation program.5
Commander of the US Air Force General Curtis LeMay wants to “bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age.” Other people in and out of the government suggest turning the country into a parking lot.
By 1971, the US Air Force has run 19,905 spray missions, an average of thirty-four daily, over the forests, jungles, and fields of southern Vietnam.6
The defoliation campaign burns a 5 million acre parking lot, an area the size of Massachusetts, into Vietnam’s countryside.
Three administrations—Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon—continue the defoliation program. Attempts by congressmen like Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) and Charles Goodell (R-NY) to cut off funding for the use of herbicides in Vietnam fail by wide margins. From July 1966 to July 1973, Congress votes one hundred times for appropriations to continue the war in Vietnam, and never votes to curtail or prohibit spending for the herbicide program.7
In their pioneering work on the devastating effects of herbicides in Vietnam, Orville Schell and Barry Weisberg conclude that the United States sprayed thirty-seven of Vietnam’s forty-four provinces with Agent Orange during the first two months of 1969,
contaminating 285,000 people, with death resulting in 500 cases. In these raids, more than 905,000 hectares of rice, orchards and other crops were destroyed. Between late 1961 and October 1969, Vietnamese estimate that 43 percent of the arable land and 44 percent of South Vietnam’s tropical forests were sprayed at least once and in many cases two or three times with herbicides. Over 1,293,000 people were directly contaminated. Besides forest and mountain areas, large populated areas in the Mekong Delta have been sprayed as well, including the outskirts of Saigon itself.8
In some regions, defoliation changes the amount of rainfall, heat, and wind on the forest floor. Grasses, shrubs, and bamboo spread over the defoliated forests. Bamboo grows into high thickets, preventing hardwood forests from regrowing. Attempts to defoliate, burn, and cut bamboo do little to keep it in check.
Vietnamese report that chemicals entering the Mekong River upstream are killing biological life in the estuary. Herbicides are destroying the food wild animals depend on for their survival. Species such as the Javan rhinoceros, elephant, gibbon, and crocodile are in danger.
The destruction of Vietnam’s environment is so great that even before the war ends, some scientists are calling it “ecocide.”9
Operation Pink Rose, a “secret confidential” report from May 1967, confirms that herbicides were not only used to destroy Vietnam’s jungles and mangrove forests, but also to kill off row crops, particularly rice. Made public information in 1988, the report states that the “VC/NVA troops located in areas where crop defoliants have been used are often faced with a food crisis. The defoliant is nondiscriminate [sic] and it makes little difference whether the enemy produces its own food or relies on procurement from the local population.”10
Rural Vietnamese hate and fear herbicides, prompting US psychological warfare teams to shower the countryside with cartoon leaflets that show a bewildered peasant talking with a confident South Vietnamese government official.
MR. NAM (frightened peasant): “The Viet Cong say: ‘The Republic of Viet Nam army sprays on your farm a terrible poison to kill you.’”
GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL: “The Viet Cong hide in bushes, robbing and killing people who travel on buses and trains. This is why the government sprays the foliage, so that the VC can’t terrorize citizens like Mr. Nam.”
MR. NAM: “But how about my crops? Are these sprays harmful to people, our animals, the soil or our drinking water?”
OFFICIAL: “Look at me. You see how healthy I am. Everyday, while performing my duties, I usually breathe in a lot of the spray. Look at me, do I appear sick to you?”
MR. NAM: (Greatly relieved) “I now resolve never to listen to Viet Cong propaganda.”
OFFICIAL: “Mr. Nam and all others understand the real reasons behind the Viet Cong’s false propaganda about the defoliant spray.”11
According to Operation Pink Rose:
The defoliant is usually 100 percent effective in the destruction of row crops and consequently the VC/NVA are denied such crops when they are sprayed. The only exceptions noted are certain tuberous plants such as potatoes and carrots… If there are crops to be salvaged, the VC press into service all workers available and begin harvesting as soon after the spraying as possible in order to save the maximum amount of the crop…. Careful timing of the spraying mission denies the VC/NVA the opportunity to salvage any part of the crop….
VC units also fear harmful physical effects as a result of spraying operations. This misconception on the part of VC/NVA troops developed as an adverse effect of an anti-herbicide propaganda campaign directed primarily toward civilians by the political cadre.
“Rice is the staff of life to the VC/NVA soldier,” continues the report, and the majority of rice is
concentrated in the Mekong Delta area, where 68 percent of the annual rice crop is grown, I, II, and III Corps are rice deficient regions that must be supplied from the outside. This presents collection, storage and distribution problems for the enemy…. The destruction of crops in the fields, the capture of large rice caches, and the combination of defoliation and military operations have kept him on the move, reduced his source of supply, denied him access to his stores, and disrupted his distribution system.12
In addition to destroying food crops, the military wants to intensify its efforts to:
Reduce infiltration of NVA forces into SVN through Laos during the dry season…. One promising technique is to contaminate certain selected interdiction points with riot control agent CS. This agent has been approved for use in SVN and has been employed successfully in support of tactical operations….
Riot control agents produce temporary irritating or disabling physiological effects when in contact with the eyes or when inhaled. Riot control agents used in field concentrations do not permanently injure personn
el. Complete recovery from agent effects is spontaneous when the individual moves to a clear atmosphere.13
The use of passive voice, “This agent has been approved for use in SVN,” is interesting. It is apparently okay for the military to use toxic gases against the enemy in Vietnam because someone, somewhere, approves of this tactic. Like herbicides, CS gas does not harm human beings. It might cause temporary “irritating or disabling” effects, but once individuals move to “a clear atmosphere” they will be fine.
Between October 1966 and April 1967, the military devises a new technique for destroying Vietnam’s environment. It will send squadrons of B-52S over the defoliated jungle to firebomb “free strike targets” and square “target boxes” approximately seven kilometers on each side. Pilots will first saturate the jungle with Agent Orange, after which ground crews will make sure that the forest is dry enough to be ignited by incendiary bombs.
The director of defense research and engineering asks the Forest Service and the US Department of Agriculture to research the feasibility of destroying large areas of forest and jungle in Southeast Asia. (The declassified papers do not indicate what this research might entail).
On March 11, 1966, fifteen B-52 aircraft drop incendiaries on a defoliated area at Chu Phong Mountain near Pleiku. The results are “inconclusive”; however, the military decides that this “technique” might be “operationally feasible.”14
Before the next phase begins, the Air Force flies 255 sorties over the experimental zone, expending 255,000 gallons of herbicides to kill the forests. The ground crews sent afterward find that the forest is dry, and thirty B-52s swarm over the target, dropping incendiary bombs on defoliated forests.
In its “Effectiveness of Burn” evaluation of these raids, the military concludes that open areas burn well, while “under double canopy, fires spread only about six feet on either side of ignition source…. Crown canopy removal negligible.”
Smoke plumes rise 5,000 to 9,000 feet into the air after these raids, and enemy troops fire on the helicopters that attempt to survey the damage. Landing zones are most likely booby trapped, and the widespread fires the operation had hoped for do not occur.15
A team assigned to evaluate why Operation Pink Rose failed concludes:
Density of bomblets was increased by a factor of three.
Two additional months of maximum drying were provided.
Timing between B-52 cells was reduced from four to three minutes to provide a more nearly simultaneous ignition. Vietnam refuses to burn.16
Many veterans believe that the military was experimenting with new weapon systems in Vietnam. In fact, they say, Vietnam was a dress rehearsal for future wars. The US and Great Britain perfected the tactic of firebombing cities in Europe and Japan during World War II, so it’s only a matter of time before mad scientists discover how to set fire to entire nations, destroying all food supplies and killing anyone who doesn’t flee the attack. Instant war. No contest. Over before it even starts.
In addition to the use of herbicides, the Air Force drops 3.5 million 500–700 pound bombs on Vietnam from 1967–68, leaving ten to fifteen million large craters, as well as many millions of unexploded munitions that will continue to wound and kill children, farmers, and others who collect scrap metal to sell after the war. The amount of energy these bombing raids release is the equivalent of 328 Hiroshima A-bombs… These attacks left some 10–15 million large bomb craters as a semi-permanent feature of the landscape in Vietnam, alone. Also left behind were many unexploded landmines, bomblets, and other unexploded ordinance (UXO) which continue to threaten life and limb throughout the region.”17
The military also uses 2,500-pound Rome Plows to destroy Vietnam’s forests. Nicknamed “Hog Jaws,” just one of these massive bulldozers can clear 10,000 feet of trees up to eighteen inches in diameter every hour. Two tractors dragging a chain between them can rip out entire rows of rubber trees. Anyone caught hiding in the dense foliage will be shredded.18
Approximately 40 percent of the total forestlands in South Vietnam are damaged by shrapnel that leaves the trees susceptible to fungal entry and decay, killing many of these trees. Herbicides also damage the soil in Vietnam, destroying the microorganisms needed to prevent erosion and removing the humus material. This results in the soil turning lateritic, becoming rock hard.19
Vietnam’s A Luoi Valley is particularly hard hit by defoliants. Before the war, this region was a tropical forest, rich in hardwoods, rare species of trees, and fauna. Elephants, gaur, tigers, panthers, sun bears, four species of pheasants, barking deer, wild boar, and monkeys roamed this tropical forest. The valley’s rivers teemed with fish, a natural resource for local residents.
From 1966 to 1970, the US military sprays the valley repeatedly with Agent Orange, decimating the forests and killing large numbers of wild and domestic birds and mammals. According to Vo Guy, a Vietnamese expert on the environmental effects of Agent Orange, by 2005—thirty years later—there are no signs “that indigenous forest trees are growing in the A Luoi Valley.”20
“The areas are still covered by wild weeds like many years ago,” writes Vo Guy. “Fauna is very poor and different from the original. A comparison between A Luoi valley and two control forest areas, regarding numbers of bird species and small species, showed that only 24 bird species and 5 mammal species were found in A Luoi Valley, whereas 145 and 170 bird species and 30 and 55 mammal species were censured in these two control forests.”21
At the height of the fighting, Dr. Arthur Westing, a scientist Dow Chemical considers one of the world’s experts on dioxin, travels to Southeast Asia to assess the damage defoliants are inflicting on the environment and, consequently, on the people living in defoliated areas. In April 2002, Westing tells a symposium on Agent Orange at Yale University:
Warfare is a human pastime the very intent of which is to subdue an enemy by inflicting upon it overpowering levels of death, destruction, and disruption. Damage to the human environment in time of war—both collateral and intentional—is thus as old as warfare itself (Westing, 1984a). Nonetheless, the Second Indochina War of 1961–1975 (the “Vietnam Conflict”; the “American War”) stands out today as the archetypical [sic] example of war-related environmental abuse. This negative image results from at least five major factors:
(a) Long-term systematic fury inflicted by one of the belligerents upon the environment of an enemy dependent for its survival upon a rural natural-resource-based economy (Westing 1976);
(b) The coincidence of this war with a widespread emergence of concern over the massive civil assaults being visited upon the global biosphere in general (Westing 1996a);
(c) The frightening medical consequences that have been associated with some of the environmental attacks (Westing 1978);
(d) Hostile atmospheric manipulations carried out by one of the belligerents (Westing 1976, 1977);
(e) A generalized morally or ethnically-based objection to this particular war or the way it was pursued by the USA.22
On January 22, 1975, President Gerald Ford announces that he has signed “instruments of ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, and the biological Weapons Convention, to which the Senate gave its advice and consent on December 16, 1974.” Mr. Ford decides:
that the United States shall renounce as a matter of national policy:
(1) first use of herbicides in war except use, under regulations applicable to their domestic use, for control of vegetation within J.S. bases and installations or around their immediate defense perimeters,
(2) first use of riot control agents in war except in defensive military modes to save lives, such as use of riot control agents in riot situations, to reduce civilian casualties, for rescue missions, and to protect rear area convoys.
This policy is detailed in the Executive order which I will issue today. The order also reaffirms our policy established in 1971 that any use in war of chemical herbicides and riot control agents must be approved by me in advance…
&
nbsp; It is in my earnest hope that all nations will find it in their interest to join in this prohibition against biological weapons.23
In April 1969, the military releases a “Department of the Army Training Circular” stating: “ORANGE is relatively nontoxic to man and animals. No injuries have been reported to personnel exposed to aircraft spray. Personnel subject to splashes from handling the agent need not be alarmed, but should shower and change clothes at a convenient opportunity. ORANGE is noncorrosive to metals but will remove aircraft paint and walkway coatings. Contaminated aircraft should be washed with soapy water to remove the agent.”24
In December 1969, the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science passes a resolution stating that:
Whereas, recent studies commissioned by the National Cancer Institute have shown that 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D cause birth malformations in experimental animals, and whereas, the above studies conclude that 2,4,5-T is probably dangerous to man, and that 2,4-D is potentially dangerous to man…
Whereas, there is a possibility that the use of herbicides in Vietnam is causing birth malformations among infants of exposed mothers;
Therefore, be it resolved that the Council of AAAS urge that the US Department of Defense immediately cease all use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T in Vietnam.25
The defoliation campaign officially ends in 1970. However, the last American unit does not leave Vietnam until 1973, and it’s hard to imagine that commanders will allow dense foliage to grow around their base camps, giving attackers cover to reach the perimeter without being detected. Perhaps American pilots do stop soaking the countryside with Agent Orange, but that does not mean that South Vietnam’s Air Force stops flying spray missions, or that soldiers from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the US stop spraying Agent Orange from backpacks, trucks, and helicopters. No one keeps track of the exact amounts of herbicide used this way.