Dirty Bomb
A dirty bomb is a radiological weapon that combines a conventional explosive packaged with radioactive materials (Council on Foreign Relation, 2010). The purpose of the bomb is to contaminate the area around the explosion with radioactive materials. A dirty bomb kills or injures through initial blast of the conventional explosive and by airborne radiation and contamination. Dirty bombs are not likely to cause mass death but their main purpose is to create psychological harm through mass panic and terror (Wikipedia, 2010).
According to the Federation of American Scientists (2004), threat of a dirty bomb attack in the United States has remained significant. This is because there is a flood of radio active sources, from discarded cancer treatment machine to misplaced industrial gadgets that turn up in junk yards, which could easily be exploited by terrorist seeking to make dirty bombs. Government agents and other security experts have been worried that the American port systems could be used by terrorists to smuggle in personnel, weapons and dangerous materials that could be used to make dirty bombs into the United States (CRS Report for Congress, 2005).
In this regard, American entry ports had to implement tighter security measures to better detect illicit and dangerous materials that attempt to get into the country. To raise port security, congress passed the Maritime security act of 2002 in November 2002 that introduced measures to closely monitor every cargo that pass through the American ports and that are transported on U.S maritime system. However heated debate is still on, on whether the security measures implemented by the ports are adequate to prevent the Dirty bomb threat with others arguing that there are still gaps that need to be sealed.
References
Wikipedia (2010), Dirty Bomb, retrieved on October 15, 2010, from Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb
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