THE scientific invasion of Iraq has begun. The UN inspectors who arrived in Baghdad last week are the latest and most ambitious an embodiment of an idea born of the nuclear era: that conflict can be curbed by limiting certain weapons technologies, and that those limits can be policed by inspection and monitoring.
Weapons inspection is not a precise science but it does rely on scientific principles and techniques. In Iraq, the aim is to explore the minutiae of the country’s industries, imports, diseases, radioactivity and a dozen other things to try to make sure it has not been covertly…
