The Foreign Service Journal, May 2005

but extremely negative, conse- quences. Our use of Agent Orange in Vietnam is a case in point. We had no way of knowing in the 1960s that a cohort of the next generation of Vietnamese people would either be aborted, or born with severe deformities, as a result of their par- ents’ earlier exposure to Agent Orange. And many of our own sol- diers have suffered similar side effects from exposure to that chem- ical. The fact that depleted uranium munitions are a hybrid between a tra- ditional WMD and an environmental pollutant complicates matters. It may require us to evaluate some of our national security priorities. But the U.S. must still move to control our own DU munitions through a govern- mental regulatory framework if we are to provide credible international leadership. This public policy ques- tion should be addressed by our nation’s decision-makers and lawmak- ers, based on input from a wide vari- ety of sources. The Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, the En- vironmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and others must all weigh in on it and state their concerns. Scientists tell us that the earth has M A Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 73 DU weapons add a new dimension to armaments. They not only destroy the enemy, but they can come back and kill the victor.