American Bio-Chem Weapons Expert Jonathan B. Tucker -- RIP

Slipping through today's stock market sound and fury was a Washington Post article noting the passing of WMD and nonproliferation expert Jonathan B. Tucker. (The initial is necessary to distinguish the scientist from an actor with the same first and last name.) His work includes concern over landmarks of American foreign policy. He was a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the time between the two American-led wars with that country. His testimony as a respected, trusted scientist influenced Washington's thinking and planning about the second US-Iraq conflict. It's easy and convenient to forget that Saddam Hussein once had a formidable chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Tucker did not forget. In 1997, the Post story notes that Tucker testified before a House subcommittee that Iraq "deployed chemical weapons against coalition forces". That testimony contradicted Defense Department and CIA findings.

For a sense of Dr. Tucker's career, and the respect with which he was held, take a few moments to explore the remembrance posted by the James Martin Center of Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). Tucker's photo is from the CNS website. It also offers links to professional blogs and useful summaries of different aspects of Tucker's work. However, for the layperson, Tucker and his colleagues remain distant and enigmatic. How could they be otherwise? Most scientists who work this truly dark, frightening corner of human endeavor work in obscurity. They reside in a compact, yet global intellectual community that rarely, and deliberately, receives any limelight. The scientists typically know one another's reputations and follow their peers' available published research. These biologists, bacteriologists, and other scientific specialists survive under profound government scrutiny, regardless of their nationality or other allegiances. One wonders why this select group does what it does. Don DeLillo, in his novel Underworld, explored this question via the character of a scientist who worked on the design of nuclear weapons. Even with a novelist of DeLillo's skill, the whole thing remains chilling. What drives people to explore these doomsday tools? That's only explicable by entering the labyrinth that is of the nature of human curiosity. It is a sobering thought that no one has ever returned from that passage with a clear, articulate understanding of their enigmatic journey.