‘Dirty Bomb’ Was Major New Year’s Worry

It seems as if a dirty bomb was the major concern of Homeland Security officials during New Years:

The call-up of Department of Energy radiation experts to Washington, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Baltimore was the first since the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was conducted in secrecy, in contrast with the very public cancellation of 15 commercial flights into this country from France, Britain and Mexico — the other major counterterrorism response of the holiday season.

The new details of the government’s search for a dirty bomb help explain why officials have used dire terms to describe the reasons for the nation’s fifth “code orange” alert, issued on Dec. 21 by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. U.S. officials said they remain worried today — in many cases, more concerned than much of the American public realizes — that their countermeasures would fall short.