Nightmares aplenty at NORAD

0 Comments | USA TODAY, May, 2006 | by Patrick O'Driscoll

COLORADO SPRINGS -- Last week, terrorists exploded a radioactive bomb across the river from Detroit, blew up a couple of Michigan railcars full of deadly chemicals, hijacked a U.S. airliner to Canada and triggered a lethal outbreak of plague in Mexico, just as another hurricane was slamming into New Orleans.

Fortunately, the mayhem was make-believe, an elaborate drill staged by U.S. and Canadian defense agencies. But the aim was real: to gauge military, medical and humanitarian response to multiple threats and natural catastrophes.

The exercise, dubbed Ardent Sentry, began May 8 and ends Thursday. It uses imaginary disasters to test U.S. Northern Command, or NorthCom, the military arm of homeland defense, and its air-defense partner, the North American Aerospace...