The campaign to eliminate Iraq's most deadly weapons officially begins on Monday, when 18 United Nations inspectors are scheduled to arrive in Baghdad toting thick dossiers on hundreds of potential weapons sites, from warehouses to clinics to breweries to petrochemical plants, the New York Times reports.

The team plans to make its first inspection on Wednesday, when it will scour an undisclosed site for tell-tale equipment, chemicals and documents that could provide clues that Iraq has rekindled covert biological, chemical and nuclear programs since 1998, when United Nations inspectors last withdrew.

The initial searches will probably involve well-known sites long associated with Iraq's weapons programs, and are expected to be essentially warm-up exercises unlikely to produce confrontations or much evidence, according to United Nations officials and other arms control experts.

But in the coming weeks, the inspections will become increasingly aggressive and less predictable as the team gains experience, expands its fleet of jeeps and German helicopters and grows to its full size: 80 to 100 people by the end of the year. The team is led by Hans Blix, an experienced veteran of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but includes many people with less experience, including some who have never been to Iraq before - New York Times.