In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, there is heightened concern that terrorists may try to smuggle nuclear or radiological materials into the United States. These materials could be used to produce either an IND or an RDD. An IND is a crude nuclear bomb made with highly enriched uranium or plutonium. Nonproliferation experts estimate that a successful IND could have a yield in the 10 to 20 kiloton range (the equivalent to 10,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT). An IND with a 20-kiloton yield would have the same force as the equivalent of the yield of the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki; it could devastate the heart of a medium-sized U.S. city and result in thousands of casualties and radiation contamination over a wide area. Security experts have also raised concerns that terrorists could obtain radioactive material used in medicine, research, agriculture, and industry to construct an RDD, or dirty bomb. This radioactive material is encapsulated, or sealed in metal, such as stainless steel, titanium, or platinum, to prevent its dispersal and is commonly called a sealed radioactive source. These sealed sources are used throughout the United States and other countries in equipment designed to, among other things, diagnose and treat illnesses, preserve food, detect flaws in pipeline welds, and determine the moisture content of soil. Depending on their use, sealed sources contain different types of radioactive material, such as strontium- 90, cobalt-60, cesium-137, plutonium-238, and plutonium-239. If these sealed sources fell into the hands of terrorists, they could use them to produce a simple, but potentially dangerous weapon, by packaging explosives, such as dynamite, with the radioactive material, which would be dispersed when the bomb went off. Depending on its type, amount, and form (powder or solid), the dispersed radioactive material could cause radiation sickness in people nearby and produce serious economic costs and the psychological and social disruption associated with the evacuation and subsequent cleanup of the contaminated area. While no terrorists have detonated a dirty bomb in a city, Chechen separatists placed a canister containing cesium-137 in a Moscow park in the mid-1990s. Although the device was not detonated and no radioactive material was dispersed, the incident demonstrated that terrorists have the capability and willingness to use radiological materials as weapons of terrorism. Another form of nuclear terrorism occurred with the release of radioactive materials in London. In November 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, was poisoned with a gram of polonium-210—about the size of a grain of salt. His poisoning was detected only after he was hospitalized for a few weeks and tested for symptoms of radiation exposure because of hair loss. Following the poisoning, forensic investigators identified, with the help of the victim, 47 sites across London where he had been during the few days between his poisoning and death. Of these locations, about 20 showed signs of this radioactive material. Investigators identified over 900 people who might have been exposed to the polonium, including some who may have been exposed while aboard airplanes. After a thorough examination, a few of these individuals turned out to have significant exposure levels. The decontamination activities at these sites, including a hotel room, spanned 19 days, involved a number of methods and technologies, and cost in excess of $200,000. While state and local government responders would be expected to respond first to a terrorist incident within their jurisdiction, they would also expect that the federal government would be prepared to provide the necessary assistance for them to expedite the recovery from such an incident. Emergency management officials from 13 cities and the majority of their respective states indicated in our survey that they would rely on the federal government to conduct and fund all or almost all analysis and cleanup activities associated with recovering from an RDD or IND incident of the magnitude described in the National Planning Scenarios. However, when asked which federal agencies they would turn to for this assistance, city and state respondents replied inconsistently and frequently listed several federal agencies for the same activity. In our view, these responses indicate that there is confusion among city and state officials regarding federal responsibilities for these activities in the event of a terrorist incident. This confusion, if not addressed, could hamper the timely recovery from an RDD or IND incident. Emergency management officials from all the cities and most of their respective states told us they would rely on the federal government because their technical and financial resources would be overwhelmed by a large RDD incident—and certainly by an IND incident. Most of these officials believe they could adequately address a smaller RDD incident, such as one that is confined to a city block or inside a building. Despite this anticipated reliance on the federal government, we obtained mixed responses as to whether these RDD and IND recovery activities should be primarily a federal responsibility. Fewer than half of the respondents from the cities (6 of 13), but most of those from states (8 of 10) indicated that it should be primarily a federal responsibility. The others stressed the need for shared responsibilities with the federal government. Despite the anticipated reliance by city and state governments on the federal government for analysis and cleanup activities following an RDD or IND incident, FEMA has not developed a national disaster recovery strategy or related plans to guide involvement of federal agencies in these recovery activities, as directed by federal law and executive guidance. To date, much federal attention has been given to developing a response framework, with less attention to recovery. The new FEMA coordinator for the development of a national disaster recovery strategy told us that while the previous administration had drafted a “white paper” addressing this strategy, the new administration has decided to rethink the entire approach. She also told us that FEMA recognizes its responsibility to prepare a national disaster recovery strategy but she could not provide a time frame for its completion. However, she stated that when a recovery strategy is issued it should provide guidance to revise state, local, and other federal agency operational plans to fulfill their respective responsibilities. Moreover, the FEMA official in charge of planning told us that the agency has put on hold issuing component plans that describe how federal capabilities would be integrated to support state and local planning for response to and recovery from RDD and IND incidents. Some existing federal guidance documents addressing the assets and responsibilities of federal agencies for both response and to a lesser extent recovery-related activities have been issued as annexes to the National Response Framework and in other documents. For example, there is a nuclear and radiological incident annex, which describes the policies, situations, concept of operations, and responsibilities of the federal departments and agencies for the immediate response and short-term recovery from incidents involving the release of radiological materials. There are also emergency support function annexes that provide a structure for coordinating federal interagency support in response to domestic incidents. In addition, two other sources of guidance have been issued that, according to FEMA officials, represent stop-gap measures until it can issue more integrated planning guidance. In 2008, FEMA issued updated guidance for protection and recovery following RDD and IND incidents. This guidance was to provide some direction to federal, state, and local emergency response officials in developing operational plans and response protocols for protection of emergency workers after such an incident. In regard to recovery, this document recommended a process to involve the affected public, state and local officials, and other important stakeholders in the identification of acceptable cleanup criteria, given the specifics of the incident. The other document, issued by the Homeland Security Council, pertains to responding to an IND in the first few days prior to the arrival of other necessary federal resources. This document was prepared because the prior FEMA guidance did not sufficiently prepare state and local emergency response authorities for managing the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear detonation. Moreover, DOE, EPA and DOD are developing more detailed operational guidance on their own based on the existing federal guidance. For example, DOE has supported research on operational guidelines for implementation of protective actions described in the FEMA guidance, EPA has drafted guidance for the optimization process following RDD and IND incidents, and DOD has established operational plans for consequence management following terrorist incidents, including RDD and IND attacks. Federal agencies and local jurisdictions have been using the available guidance as a basis for planning RDD and IND exercises to test the adequacy of their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment to evaluate their level of preparedness. We identified more than 70 RDD and IND response exercises planned and carried out by federal, state and local agencies since mid-2003. However, officials with FEMA’s National Exercise Directorate told us that only three of the RDD response exercises had a recovery component. According to these officials, recovery discussions following an RDD or IND response exercise have typically not occurred because of the time needed to fully address the response objectives of the exercise, which are seen as a higher priority. The most recent response exercise, based in Albany, New York, and planned by DOE, set aside 2 days for federal, state, and local agencies to discuss operational recovery issues. One unresolved operational issue discussed during this exercise pertained to the transition of the leadership of the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) from the initial analysis of the contaminated area, led by DOE, to the later cleanup phase, led by EPA. For example, there are remaining questions regarding the level and quality of the monitoring data necessary for EPA to accept the leadership of FRMAC. While we were told that this transitional issue has been discussed in exercises dating back to the development of the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan in 1984, it has only recently been discussed in RDD or IND response exercises. Another unresolved operational recovery issue pertains to the distribution of responsibilities for the ownership, removal, and disposal of radioactive debris from an RDD or IND incident. Both of these operational issues are to be examined again in the first full-scale RDD recovery exercise, planned and led by EPA, to take place April 2010.