U.S. Provides Initial Aid to Vietnam for Prosthetic Devices
The Bush Administration, in a move officials said signals a shifting policy toward Southeast Asia, has granted the first U.S. taxpayers’ money to Vietnam since the fall of Saigon in 1975.
The Agency for International Development, in a Capitol Hill ceremony Friday, awarded $1.3 million to two private voluntary organizations to provide prosthetics and rehabilitation services for war victims in Vietnam. The ceremony was hosted by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who has backed U.S. funding to help war victims in seven other countries in the past two years.
An aide to Leahy said the Administration had been reluctant to provide similar aid to Vietnamese war victims in the past.
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