Weapons of mass destruction – topic selection

Instructions

In this unit, we learned about chemical agents as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the various types, and their uses throughout history to inflict casualties on humankind globally. Your assignment for this unit is to develop a research paper topic for your final course project, which will be due in Unit VII.

Your final course project will be a research paper in which you determine your organizational tactical response to a WMD terrorism event at a specific location selected by you. You must select your level of government involvement and the various cooperating agencies that might assist you (local, state, tribal, or federal).

Your final research paper will consist of the components listed below.

• Present a thorough description of a specific type of WMD threat at your selected event. Determine an incident location in your own city, tribal area, or state.
• Describe the demographics of the affected population, and list possible casualties based on the type of WMD selected.
• Detail your likely operational emergency medical response, homeland security response, and recovery outcomes.
• Choose a terrorist organization to use for your scenario. Describe the terrorist organization that is most likely responsible for the WMD incident at your chosen location. Discuss background information about the organization. Describe how the organization likely acquired the materials to create the WMD.
• Discuss the potential risks and threats posed by your selected WMD. Describe the development of the WMD, what technology it uses, and what laws regulate materials used in the WMD.
• Discuss all conceivable response operations at the level of government you have selected (local, state, tribal, or federal).
• Provide a description of the homeland security/emergency management organizations at all levels that you can coordinate with via the Incident Command System (ICS).

The research paper will be submitted in parts throughout Units II, III, V, and VII (the final product) in order for the professor to provide appropriate feedback and ensure you are on track with your progress.

Unit II Research Paper Topic

For the first stage of this culminating project, you will need to compose a research topic by selecting a traditional, public, large-scale event in your local area where a WMD could present a persistent threat to the attending public. Describe the type of WMD attack you will use for your scenario. In addition, provide demographic information about your city/community where the scenario is based as well as information about the public event targeted by the WMD. For instance, if you are in a small community and the targeted event is the county fair, you should provide the following information: population information for the community where the fair takes place, what the average attendance numbers are, what system of government is used in the community, what agencies respond to events in that area, who is responsible for security at the fair, what the trauma centers are like in your community (e.g., how far is the closest level-1 trauma center), and what state or federal agencies with which you would coordinate. The same type of information would apply to an event in a metropolitan area.

This assignment should be at least one page in length and utilize at least two resources from the CSU Online Library. Adhere to APA Style when creating citations and references for this assignment.