Dirty Bomb

Many state regulations require licensees to secure radioactive material from theft and unauthorized access. These measures have been stiffened since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Licensees must promptly report lost or stolen material. Local authorities make a determined effort to find and retrieve such sources. Most reports of lost or stolen material involve small or short-lived radioactive sources not useful for an RDD. Building an effective national emergency response system could facilitate all these actions. Specifically, the U.S. should1:

Develop national standards for emergency response,

Create a national system-of-systems emergency response structure

Focus federal resources on developing national surge medical capacity,

Centralize oversight of federal emergency medical response in the Department of Health and Human Services,

Enhance federal expertise in emergency medical care, and

Establish better coordination with the private sector.

Efforts to secure the global supply of radioactive material and prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorists should continue.2 Improved export controls, international monitoring, "buyback" programs, and other threat reduction measures could reduce, if only somewhat, the global glut of high-risk radioactive substances;2 but even with aggressive enforcement programs, sufficient material will likely be available worldwide over the next decades for any group wanting to mount a radiological attack.

U.S. strategy rightly focuses on stopping terrorists before they can successfully conduct an attack on American soil. However, given the wide availability of radioactive material and the many means of employing it in an attack, a determined terrorist could conduct a successful strike.

Fortunately, a great deal can be done to mitigate the casualties, psychological affects, and economic consequences