ALQAIDA TERRORIST ATTACK ON NEW YORK CITYS TIMES SQUARE DURING THE Essay

ALQAIDA TERRORIST ATTACK ON NEW YORK CITYS TIMES SQUARE DURING THE ANNUAL NEW YEARS EVE CELEBRATION USING CONCEALED IMPOVISED SPRAYING DEVICES TO DELIVER AN - Essay Example This forms the backdrop for this paper, which weighs the pros and cons on whether the al Qaeda has the motivation and capability to develop and use bio-weapons to carry out its mission of terror. A significant portion of the paper builds up the view that there is such an inclination, and that the likeliest targets are major US cities. The strongest candidate may be New York City, the possible terror attack to coincide with the traditional celebration of New Year's Eve. Part of the reasons is that in all the post-9/11 celebrations, the hundreds of thousands of Americans who joined the revelry came to challenge the terrorists to do their worst, invoking their sense of patriotism and hatred for terrorism. This constitutes a temptation that terrorists may not be able to resist. The most important section of the paper then sketches the possible actions that New York City and the federal government would take if and when such a bio-terror attack takes place. It also evaluates the wisdom and sufficiency of the preventive measures that the city and federal governments were compelled to undertake in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax scare. Among the questions we want to address is the preparedness and capabilities of the city and federal health systems to deal with a large-scale bio-chemical attack, which represents the new threat to world peace and security that the world's health and defense systems have little familiarity as yet. Can the authorities act with efficiency and dispatch to minimize the loss of lives and confine the damageChapter 2 - Biochemical Weapons Biochemical weapons appeal to terrorists for three reasons: 1) they are easier and cheaper to acquire than nuclear devices and cause more casualties; 2) their effects on target population are hard to detect and counter; and 3) the threat of their use causes fear, which element the terrorists love most. The use of bio-weapons actually goes back to the siege