"It Is Certain There Will be Many Firestorms"
Scenarios of nuclear attacks on the United States, whether by terrorist or state adversaries, have assumed that Washington, D.C. would be a major target. A startling article published as the cover story of theJanuary-February 2004 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists describes the enormously destructive effects to the Washington, D.C. area if, on a clear day, an adversary exploded, 1500 feet above the Pentagon, a nuclear weapon with an explosive force of 300 kilotons (20 times the explosive force of the Hiroshima weapon).