On November 18, 2002, a team of United Nations’ inspectors led by Hans Blix arrived in Baghdad, Iraq to look for weapons of mass destruction.

Following the Golf War in 1991 the U.S. and its allies developed and maintained a policy of “containment” towards Iraq. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Iraq for not complying with UN resolutions. Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s President, went on to kick out UN inspectors from his country.

The U.S. and Britain then put pressure on Hussein to allow UN inspectors back into the country. After four years of pressure, Hussein finally allowed UN inspectors back in Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction.

On this day, November 18, 2002, Hans Blix, Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), arrived in Baghdad, Iraq with other inspectors. Right from the start, Blix faced many difficult obstacles. For example, he did not have enough inspectors, there was no documentation identifying any weapons of mass destruction, and it’s likely that any weapons that may have existed had been smuggled out the country well before Blix arrived.

Blix and his inspectors searched for but found no concrete evidence of weapons of mass destruction. However, President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was hiding them, or at least had disposed of them somewhere. As such, Bush and Blair called for the invasion of Iraq “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's alleged support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."

At the beginning of 2003, President Bush stated in his State of the Union address that "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs.” Bush and Blair finally gave Hussein an ultimatum to leave his country or face war. Hussein refused to comply with the ultimatum. So, on March 18, 2003, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Poland and other countries engaged in bombing Iraq. However, unlike the first Gulf War or the war in Afghanistan, the UN gave no authorization to attack Iraq – in large part because Saddam did allow inspectors into the country.

As of February 2003, Hans and his inspectors found no weapons of mass destruction and left Iraq. Blix did not agree with the US’s attack on Iraq and has remained critical of it to this day.