The main purpose of the United Nations inspectors in Iraq before the Gulf War was to look for weapons of mass destruction, which Iraq was thought to have hidden. Also, Iraq had a history of using chemical weapons even against its own people, for these reasons, the United Nations Imposed as a condition to end hostilities in the region, that the country disclosed all the weapons of mass destruction it had in its arsenal.
Resolution 687 was passed by the Security Council which demanded the removal and destruction of Chemical, Biological and Nuclear arms. Even though at first Iraq agreed to cooperate with the inspectors, later they became more evasive and tried to deceive the United Nations´ inspectors.
In terms, the United Nations had no other option but to authorized the use of force against Iraq to make them comply.
