Yesterday was the last day of the "dirty bomb" terror drill that the NYPD, as well as many other agencies, conducted to test its abilities to detect radioactive materials that could be used in a terrorist threat, as part of the Securing the Cities program. Traffic was backed up in Brooklyn by the Williamsburg Bridge as the NYPD inspected cars (and cyclists?) for mock suspicious materials.
This came a few days after the NYPD successfully detected a mock dirty bomb on a boat near the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton told the AP these exercises are important, "so you can be better prepared to respond when there's an actual event. You need to identify what works and what doesn't work."
But the AP reports that some critics feel that the Securing the Cities approach "is overly reliant on the rare instances when investigators receive a tip of trouble and ignores the fact that terrorists don't have to travel outside the city to obtain dangerous materials used legitimately in the medical and construction field." A retired air force colonel, Randell Larsen, said, "It's fine to do all the lights-and-sirens exercises. But that doesn't address what to do once a dirty bomb goes off. No one wants to do that exercise."
