Pentagon Planners Wargame Really, Really Bad Day

When the U.S. military dreams up a worst-case scenario, it doesn't think small. This week, USA Today reports, U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command are conducting a training exercise involving the following simultaneous situations:

• A "dirty bomb" attack on Windsor, Ontario, near Detroit, killing more than 5,000 Canadians.
• Terrorist attacks in Detroit itself involving explosions of railcars containing chlorine and phosgene gas in which nearly 13,000 people die, 85,000 are hurt, and 3.5 million are forced to evacuate.
• The hijacking of an American airliner, which is later shot down by Canadian fighter jets, killing more than 100 passengers and crew members.
• A release of plague bacteria in Mexico City, killinf almost 8,00 people and sending thousands more across the U.S.-Mexican border.
• A bird-flu outbreak in the United States.
• A Category 3 hurricane hits New Orleans again.

"When they have an exercise here, America's having a bad day," said Ronald Eller, the Army Corps of Engineers' representative at NorthCom. "They come up with a lot of Armageddon."