(CNN) -- The United States has pitched in for the first time to
clean up part of the toxic legacy left by the millions of
gallons of the chemical compound codenamed Agent Orange that it
dumped on Vietnam during the war there in the 1960s and '70s.
The U.S. military used Agent Orange to kill trees and plants
that blocked visibility from the air during the Vietnam War. But
the chemical was contaminated with dioxin, which can cause
cancer and birth defects. It harmed humans and left areas of
Vietnam contaminated. In an effort to start addressing this
noxious remnant of the war, the U.S. and Vietnamese governments,
along with partnering organizations, are treating a contaminated
zone at the airport of the central Vietnamese city of Danang.
Workers will dig up soil, stockpile it, and treat it using high
temperatures that break down the dioxin. "We are both moving
earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our
past," David Shear, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, said
Thursday at a ceremony opening the