True,... unless they go after the Central California farming area. California grows 50% of this nations produce last I checked. If they blew up a few dirty bombs there, people would refuse to eat anything to come from that area, even though most of it would be safe. That would be devastating economically. All produce in the nation would instantly double in price, there would be shortages that we would have to augment by using more produce from places like Chile and Mexico with laxer enforcement standards.
They go after say a major water way like the Colorado River or the Mighty Mississippi, even though the danger would be miniscule, people would avoid any activity involving them.
We could go into the second great depression if we don't stop these guys before they act again.
I've worried about the Mississippi River for a while now. If all the ports up and down the river are considered, it's the second busiest port in the world.
Not at all.
Unlike anthrax spores, which aren't easy to detect if present in a large volume of material, radiation at least has the virtue of being easy to scan for.
Radiological bombs set off in a few fields of crops would be a total waste. The government would quickly map out the (rather small) affected areas, cordon them off, and absolutely every other agricultural field in the country would be perfectly safe -- and could easily be proven so with geiger counters and other similar instruments.
If anyone was paranoid about a particular food shipment, it too could be quickly tested and cleared. I would have absolutely no apprehension eating produce after such an event.
It would *not* be like the old joke:
A farmer was tired of kids jumping his fence and eating his watermelons, so he put up a sign: "Warning, one of the watermelons in this field has been poisoned."The next day he went to check his field and found that the sign had been replaced with another which said, "Now two of them have..."