I found a blog that puts forth a very plausible scenario of a terrorist attack on American soil. The scenario includes the result of the attack and the hypothetical response. This is an awesome read! I would be interested in what anyone else’s thoughts on a response might be.

From The Officer's Club Blog.

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Over at Jeff Goldstein’s blog, he asks a vital question on the US response to a biowarfare attack:

Anyway, here’s a question: at that point—after we learn of an attack, contain it, and clean up our dead—what do we do? Try to locate the perpetrators (who are likely dead themselves)? Conduct a number of investigations into where the toxin came from, who produced it,and then, once we realize we can never know for certain, hold congressional finger-pointing hearings on whose fault it is that the biological attack were successful?

Because frankly, all of those options seem impotent.

Any ideas? Will drastic, non-"compassionate" measures finally be taken—and if they are, shouldn’t they be done without a lot of talk, without a lot of time passing, and—most importantly—without giving it a second thought? I think so—at least, that’s my first reaction. And I believe every civilized nation should stand behind the decision, quickly vigorously pushing back against its opportunistic partisans who see in dissent a potential political inroad to power through appeasement and self-recrimination.

In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have the plan drawn up beforehand and let it be known what the world reaction will be in the event of a biological attack—be it isolating certain countries that are know to aid terrorists, or something more drastic (the official US stance is that nuclear weapons could be used in the event of a biological attack).

I know there is usually a gap between how we want things to happen, and how they actually happen. This is how I believe a bio-attack scenario would play out, and what the national security/military reaction to it would be.

September 11^th, 2010. A cell of Islamic extremists converges on Detroit. Nine men, all from Saudi Arabia and funded by random world-wide Islamic charities, slush funds from mid-east based oil corporations, and money ear-marked from Saudi Arabian banks. These men are all have master’s and doctorates in chemistry and biology, and all were educated in American universities and have been working for American pharmaceutical, chemical, and biotec firms for 10 years until the terror sleeper cell they were all members of was “activated” by a coded message in a broadcast from terror leader Usama Bin Laden shown over Al Jazeera.

They converged on Detroit with an enormous supply of weaponized Ebola virus, which they insert into the water supply in the dead of night, and then flee the scene. Over the next 24 hours, bedlam breaks out across the city as people are infected with the weaponized virus, and begin to experience effects immediately after exposure. Police are soon overwhelmed as people begin to flee the city, and the National Guard is deployed to quarantine the entire area. People begin to die after 24 hours –the disease, once absorbed from the water supply, can only be transferred by blood or saliva contact. This decreases the potential fatalities as helicopters circle the city, broadcasting instructions and dropping pallets of bottled water around the city. Riots break out across the country as people begin to stop going to work, raid grocery stores for supplies, and pressure the government to do something. Meanwhile, a few surrounding urban areas in Michigan begin to show signs of infection from those who fled the city before the cordon was established. Some people flew out of the airport, and are now in different cities and dying from the virus. Fear sweeps the nation as flight manifests are scrubbed and everyone is tracked down.

During all of this commotion, an FBI counter terror task force identifies the terror cell and apprehends them as they attempt to flee across the Mexican border. It is immediately announced over the US news media that the terrorists have all been caught, they are of Saudi descent, and their bank accounts register as suspect.

After two weeks of sheer panic, the country begins to get itself together. The final death toll tallies to about 9,000 people –the fatality rate for those that were infected was 100%. The dead are buried and the Army Corps of Engineers has shocked the entire Detroit water supply and removed all traces of the virus. Never the less, once the cordon is lifted the entire population of Detroit flees the city, never to return. The US economy, especially the manufacturing side, takes a huge hit. So the President reassures the public that America has a plan to respond to this act of terrorism, which was 9/11 times three.

President George Allen, flanked by Veep Rudy Guliani and Secretary of Defense Tommy Franks announces that Islamic terrorism has now struck the American homeland for the last time, and vows the Saudis will pay dearly for their citizen’s second attack on the United States in 10 years. A joint session of congress gives the President authority under Article II of the Constitution to use direct military action against what our intelligence deems terrorist “centers of gravity” anywhere in the world, at any time, in any country.

The entire US military is put on alert, as terror training camps are bombed in Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia suddenly finds its wahhabi schools overrun by Americans in civilian clothes with guns, backed by Stryker combat vehicles, attack helicopters, and the US Air Force overhead. The Saudi Army doesn’t dare attempt to enforce its borders, and the American Secretary of State refuses to comment about any “operation” going on in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. Reports across the Arab world emerge of Marine invasions in Egypt, Air Assaults into Pakistan, and border and sovereignty violations across the globe. Anywhere terror centers of gravity exist, be they ideological, financial, operational, intelligence, or logistical, they are targeted and destroyed.