[JoeSchem]

The nuclear threat from terrorists would most likely be a small tactical nuke that would only take out a few city blocks. The actual death toll from the blast would be under 100,000.

But then confusion reigns. The city is on fire, there is no evacuation plan, the people are wandering the streets and becoming irradiated from the fallout. Over the next month, the death toll climbs over a million or more.

The President will assure us that life must go on. Tom Ridge will announce that everything is under control. Tommy Thompson will declare that it's an isolated incident. The FBI will investigate non-Muslims.

Then another nuke will go off, in another city.

In panic, every major city in America will be evacuated. The President will assure us that our cities are safe and that everyone should return and act as if nothing happened. Then he will retreat into an underground bunker at an undisclosed location.

[Dan Day]

But then confusion reigns. The city is on fire, there is no evacuation plan, the people are wandering the streets and becoming irradiated from the fallout. Over the next month, the death toll climbs over a million or more.

No, it doesn't.

You did a good job correcting the wild overestimates of the number of dead from the blast, then you turn around and wildly overestimate the number of radiation deaths...

A "suitcase nuke" would be less than a tenth the size of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs, and even *they* didn't kill more than about 100,000 people *combined*, which includes the blast, fire, *and* radiation fatalities.