When Viewing Dirty War, I was concerned primarily with the amount of secrecy held within the British government. It was stated in the movie that the government must carry a certain amount of secrecy in order to fight “terrorism.” I don’t think that the British people were educated enough about chemical warfare, or that it was covered enough in the media until the dirty bomb went off and thousands had to wait for decontamination. The people who were around the blast were freaked out, primarily because they were uninformed until the very moment the blast came out. For example, the warning against contamination due to open abrasions, drinking water, or putting your hands up to your mouth were not given until after the attack, which in itself led to many people contaminating each other. I think that the people should have been more informed about the spread of the biological radiation exposure, and should have been informed when, at the beginning of the movie, the British bomb squad and the drills that were being conducted.
I feel that the British government was not being completely truthful with there people. Although the government immediately dispatched troops in order to detoxify those who were exposed to the blast that took place, but, were not fully informed about the dangers of what was in the blast, and in turn, ended up spreading the infection to others. I think that if the British government wouldn’t have taken the stance it did on protecting the people by withholding information about future terrorist attacks. I think some things that could have been done better would be; one, put out alerts and notify the public about the suspected terrorist attack, two, broadcasted preventative measures the people could take in the event of a terrorist attack. I think some lessons that should be learned would be, practicing prevention programs with our citizens, educating citizens through the use of the national media campaigns. Another thing that America could do would be to notify the people of possible future terrorist attacks that could take place. I think it is important to spread prevention. The British government kept a code of secrecy with there people during the investigations of the extremist, if the people would have been informed, they might have responded in a “lighter” manner and the need for martial law wouldn’t have been necessary.
Interagency communications throughout the movie were fairly poor. Throughout the movie, local and federal agencies were missharing information in the beginning, and received some negative feedback from certain military officials. During the investigation of the group of extremist, the federal bureau was doing a poor job at first. When one of the Extremist was caught, they were unable to make him confess. During the questioning of the extremist that was caught, they could not make him tell them were the other members of his group were, and were they were going to be conducting there terrorist attack. In the end of the movie, they were unable to catch two of the terrorist, which led to them blowing up there van which had bioactive nuclear powder which was set off in the air after the explosion only leaves what will happen to those exposed to the blast to the imagination. One thing about an attack such using a bio dirty bomb, there is know telling what the effects of the blast will produce until years after the event. Although the movie ended leaving little insight into the future of what the victims will go through concerning there health, radiation readings were off the charts!
One thing that I liked about the movie was the inevitable capture of the last two bombers, if the bombers would not have been caught, it could have led to a second bombing and more hazards chemicals into the air. What I didn’t like about the movie was the constant display of the exteremist view, leaving the viewer with the idea that these terrorist attacks are being carried out by the Muslim extremist, when, in recent years, evidence has emerged that both 7/7/7 in the UK, and 9/11 in the United States were not acts of extremist, but rather an inside job.
From an overall integrated systems point of view, I think that the even went rather badly, primarily because only half of the total attack was stopped. Two of the terrorist still carried out an attack, and many people were exposed to high amounts of radiation, which could have long term effects. Another failure was the lack of pertinent information, which caused many people to spread there contamination to those around them. Many citizens were told not to put there hands up to there mouths, or drink any water until 30 minutes after the blast took place. I think some of the larger, more global lessons that can be learned from this affair include; practicing prevention methods to prepare the population for a terrorist attack, and also, causing us to learn a lesson regarding the negative effects of government secrecy concerning the terrorist and the information the had concerning when the attacks were to be carried out.
In summary, I enjoyed the movie but thought that many aspects of it were a little over exaggerated. Concerning recent events, I think that many people, especially in America, are no longer buying the theory that a bunch of Muslim extremist living in a cave, carried out an attack on our world trade centers and pentagon. Many people fail to understand that they should never sacrifice there liberty for security, or they will end up with neither.