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Comparing 9/11 to, let's say, Katrina, and there is no real comparison. 9/11 was terrible enough, but the effect was limited, directly, to areas of New York, the death toll was high due to the concentration of people within the area of effect, and proximity to Wall Street ensured economic disruption in the nation.
However, even all that can't really compare to Katrina, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, the death toll isn't as high, however, the area of effect, the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, was huge, and the economic impact was devastating. Also, just a note, depending on where you live, you are MUCH more likely to either die or be directly affected by a hurricane than any terrorist strike, even in New York.
The problem is this, you assume that terrorists may be able to use a WMD to great effect. I strongly doubt that, each of the most popular WMDs have problems that limit their effectiveness outside of a battlefield, or concentrated fire or exposure. The easiest and most devastating are chemical weapons, however, these require labs, research, and a suitable medium in which to transmit the chemical weapon. They are also reliant on wind, and most are ineffective outside of confined areas, like subways. Look up the subway attacks in Japan as an example of that.
Biological weapons also pose many of the same problems, in addition to containment. Even the most virulent strains of most diseases that are "weaponized" are treatable, and those that are developed are developed by governments, and can be traced back to its source easily enough, using gene sequencing.
Onto nuclear material and things get REALLY complicated, first off, there is no such thing as a "suitcase nuke", actually, it CAN fit in a suitcase, but one that weighs several hundred pounds, and you MIGHT be able to fit it in the trunk of a large car. However, delivering the weapon to an area you want would be difficult, and almost impossible to do with PROPER precautions taken to detect nuclear material. A Geiger counter, that you can buy off the Internet for about 100 bucks, is sufficient enough to detect these weapons.
The thing about nuclear material, especially weapons grade nuclear material, is that its tightly controlled, and is also traceable back to its enrichment plant through isotope tracking. If such a device could be detonated anywhere where people will get killed, the plant where it came from would be tracked, and if traced to a hostile nation, let's just say they won't exist anymore. No nation on the planet would allow its nuclear arms to actually be used in this manner, for the "blowback" wouldn't be survivable.
Now, "dirty bomb" scenarios are much more likely, of any nuclear scenario, however, the effectiveness of the device wouldn't be nearly as large as advertised on television. A worst case scenario, let's say a truck bomb the size McVeigh used in OKC, but with several pounds of let's say U-238 in it, wouldn't dramatically increase the death toll. Most people who will die in the attack would have died in the conventional explosive blast. For most other people in the city, they would probably be given a radiation tablet, as a precaution, and those closest to the blast would be advised by a doctor that their chances of developing cancer increased 10% or so.
Now, for the blast area itself, nuclear cleanup would have to take place, similar to many toxic waste dumps and industrial accidents that occur damned near weekly in this country as is. Around the immediate are of the blast, they would try to clean up the U-238 as best as possible, the danger wouldn't be immediate unless it completely vaporized, but even then, it would begin to settle pretty quickly. The danger is in PROLONGED exposure, the area would be cleaned up, some measurements taken, THEN they would rebuild anything that was destroyed.
This isn't to say any of these wouldn't be potent PSYCHOLOGICAL weapons, people have a tendency to panic, especially when the actual danger is overblown by either the media or government. That's part of the problem, FEAR, fear is a great survival technique, all part of the "fight or flight" mode we all have built within us, on an instinctual level. However, the danger comes in abusing this very instinct to your advantage, I'm reminded of a few gas station owners in my area that, on the day of the 9/11 attack, increased prices of gasoline to upwards of 10 to 20 dollars a gallon, capitalizing on people's fear and panic. Thankfully, a few days after that, they were arrested for that little stunt.
The point being that we must put all threats to our lives in perspective, just because, tomorrow, you may be struck dead by a lightening bolt, doesn't mean you shouldn't go outside today and enjoy the fresh air. Instead, you take necessary and common sense precautions to reduce the risk of lightening striking you today. Don't go golfing when a storm is raging, don't hang out under trees, stick lightening rods on roofs of buildings, etc. You do not blow the threat all out of proportion and only go outside wearing a rubber suit from head to toe.
The War on Terror is much the same way, first, we must realize that declaring a war on a tactic of asymmetrical warfare is doomed to failure. You cannot declare war on a tactic of an enemy, what's next, a war on "freedom fighters"?
What we need is a comprehensive and common sense approach to meeting this threat, you cannot bomb terrorism, however, you can reduce the EFFECTIVENESS of terroristic threats. First thing I can think of is prevention, just like Lightening rods, which redirect energy from lightening bolts to the ground, and are therefore harmless. The same could be done with terrorism, its a tactic that is used by the desperate, and those that persieve themselves as powerless, simply enough, remove the desperation and powerlessness, and you remove most of the motivation of terrorists. A way to do this is to encourage DOMESTIC democratization in nations like Iran, and, in addition to this, STOP SUPPORTING DICTATORS AND BRUTAL MONARCHS. Some of the governments that may arise from this type of policy may not have our best economic interests at heart, but that is far better than them wanting to actively kill us using proxies.
This wouldn't eliminate all terrorism, there are always crazies out there, so we need to increase our intelligence, to intercept any communications. In addition to this, increase inspections of our ports and economic and shipping centers, to prevent dangerous materials from entering the country. I don't know how much we can increase our law enforcement in this country, however, we can do pretty much all that is needed without violating the Bill of Rights and other applicable laws.
This would eliminate most of the terroristic threat, and wouldn't involve us in any wars or invasions which seem to breed more terrorists than we could ever hope to destroy.
We need a comprehensive approach at this, similar to treating a disease, people turn to religion when in desperate straights, and they turn to violence when other methods of influence fail. We eliminate one, then the other, and the threat is, by and large, eliminated, outside of the occasional, McVeigh type of crazy.
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