Rainbow Herbicides

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The Rainbow Herbicides are a group of tactical-use herbicides used by the United States military in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Success with Project AGILE field tests in 1961 with herbicides in South Vietnam was inspired by the British use of herbicides and defoliants during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s, which led to the formal herbicidal program Trail Dust (see Operation Ranch Hand). Herbicidal warfare is the use of substances primarily designed to destroy the plant-based ecosystem of an agricultural food production area and/or to destroy dense foliage which provides the enemy with natural tactical cover. Under the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) definition, toxic agents such as rainbow herbicides are not considered chemical weapons as they are not used to cause intentional death or harm to humans through their toxic properties.

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