bballad: Clearly, if you weren't in the Navy, you were never in the military at all.....

When you say we "concentrated" all our troops in Kuwait let me assure you that they were not all living in the same hotel....<s> They were very well spread out with regard to an incoming nuke. Outside of the Big 5, (USA, Britain, France, Russia and, maybe, China), the nukes available are really quite small and, as such, do not have a particularly large area of impact damage. Most have only a few miles depending upon the countryside in which they detonate. Granted, Kuwait's terrain does lend itself well to a nuke, (not much vertical structure to slow the blast or, more importantly dissipate the heat but even so troops 20-30 miles from ground zero would be affected little if at all. The fallout created by a ground burst would be entirely dependent upon the wind and rain after that. Granted again, Kuwait's climate suits that well, little rain and steady winds but the troops are well protected in their vehicles nowadays with overpressure systems in the vehicle to prevent ingress if the nasty stuff. They simply drive out of the downwind hazard area to the nearest decontamination site, decontam, get checked for radiation, skirt the dowmwind hazard area and return to battle. No harm done...... We won't go into the effects of the EMP sinc ethat will complicate the issue.

As to Pakistan being able to hit any staging area...... Erm.... We were flying B-117's from Oklahoma to Baghdad..... We win that one by taking out their nukes with conventional weapons before we stage...... silly...