A neutron bomb would be cleaner...
I’d think that’s the last thing someone would want to use. I mean if you are going to go to the level of nuking DC, I’d think it would be as an example...a ‘salt the earth’ kind of thing so that the seat of the great Satan was forever (well for a long time) used as an example.
Standard communist/Muslim philosophy to destroy a country/people’s symbols of power.