U.N. Begins Air Searches for Iraqi Scuds : Inspections: Team members accompanied by Iraqis will make unrestricted flights in remote areas.

Weapons inspectors searching for Scud missiles and launchers flew U.N. helicopters over Iraqi territory Thursday for the first time since Iraq backed down and gave its permission.

The U.N. inspectors intend to make unrestricted surveillance flights in remote areas and to stage surprise visits at sites suspected of holding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Earlier teams have been restricted to the Baghdad area by lack of transportation.

The 20-member team took off from Baghdad’s Rasheed military airfield, said Alastair Livingston, an official at the U.N. Special Commission’s office in Bahrain.

The inspection teams work for the commission, which is overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s long-range missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs under the Persian Gulf War cease-fire.

The commission’s chairman, Rolf Ekeus, arrived in Bahrain late Thursday on the way to Baghdad with his deputy, Robert Gallucci, to discuss the inspections with Iraqi officials, Livingston said.

Saddam Hussein’s government long opposed the U.N. helicopters, saying the inspectors should fly aboard Iraqi aircraft. But it gave in to demands by the U.N. Security Council last week after warnings from the United States that the lack of cooperation could bring new military action.

Last week, the Iraqis detained a team of U.N. nuclear experts for more than four days in an attempt to prevent removal of documents that U.N. officials say detail Iraq’s clandestine program to produce nuclear arms. Iraq finally allowed the nuclear team to carry out 25,000 pages of documents.

In the latest inspections, U.N. officials agreed to allow an Iraqi liaison officer to accompany each flight by the three U.S.-made CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, provided by Germany.

Livingston, the commission’s field operations chief in Bahrain, said the ballistics team will spend the next few days flying over western Iraq to search for fixed-site launchers used to fire Scud missiles into Israel in the Gulf War.

Their mission is “to identify and destroy, or provide supervision for the destruction of, some fixed launch sites for Scud missiles,” he said.

The aircraft will stay in set air corridors over Baghdad and nearby sensitive military areas, but once over the open desert they will move freely, Livingston said.

UN. INSPECTION HELICOPTERS

U.N. inspectors began their search Thursday for Scud missiles and launchers in the remote Iraqi desert. They are flying aboard German-owned CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters with German crews. Twoof the helicopters will be used for the daily searches and one will remain at the al-Rahsheed airfield as a backup unit.