what was agent orange used for in the vietnam war
Agent Orange During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 U.S. gallons (76,000 m3) of various chemicals – the "rainbow herbicides" and defoliants – in Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia as part of the aerial defoliation program known as Operation Ranch Hand, reaching its peak from 1967 to 1969. For comparison purposes, an olympic size pool holds approximately 660,000 U.S. gal (2,500 m3).[22][23][24] As the British did in Malaya, the goal of the US was to defoliate rural/forested land, depriving guerrillas of food and concealment and clearing sensitive areas such as around base perimeters.[25] The program was also a part of a general policy of forced draft urbanization, which aimed to destroy the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, forcing them to flee to the U.S.-dominated cities, depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base.[23][26]