Investigators began a fresh search Thursday for clues to the fate of American servicemen still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.

American specialists began arriving in Vietnam to excavate as many as 23 burial and aircraft crash sites and to investigate as many as 45 other cases of missing servicemen, said Gary Flanagan, a deputy commander of the U.S. MIA office in Hanoi.The search is the 30th since such efforts began in September 1988. It comes nine days before the scheduled arrival of the most senior American officials to visit Hanoi since President Clinton removed the 19-year U.S. economic embargo against Vietnam on Feb. 3.

The delegation, which plans to discuss the MIA issue with Vietnamese leaders, will be led by Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Hershel Gober, Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW-MIA Affairs James Wold. It will include representatives of the five largest U.S. veterans organizations, as well as Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director of the National League of POW-MIA Families.

Clinton has said Vietnam must do more to help resolve cases of missing Americans before the United States establishes full diplomatic relations with it.

The 102 U.S. MIA investigators flew to Vietnam on Air Force and commercial jets from their base in Hawaii. They and their local counterparts have started to fan out across northern, central and southern Vietnam, as well as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Saigon, Flanagan said. Their search will last for 27 days.

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The last operation, which ended in May, produced 16 sets of remains believed to be those of Americans.

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