The air piracy attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent postal bioteirorism events that followed suggest that the possibility of a terrorist act involving radioactive materials is not an unforeseeable scenario. But for a number of reasons, the country is not optimally prepared to anticipate or react to such an event. Fortunately, the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) had been considering the threat of domestic terrorism well prior to the attacks in late 2001, and had dedicated a significant amount of reflection and thought on the types of attacks that might be plausible. With the onset of the terrorist events in September 2001, the NCRP accelerated the completion and publication of their report entitled "Management of Terrorist Events Involving Radioactive Materials". This report, NCRP No. 138, was released on October 24, 2001, just over a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. The NCRP's Report No. 138 serves as an excellent basis upon which rational radiological emergency preparedness programs for terroristic events can be developed. However, before work is initiated on the creation of such a plan, a brief assessment of the nation's current radiological civil defense mechanisms would be beneficial in focusing efforts in this area.
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