THE PERMANENT SELL

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White House correspondent James Carney reports that the Clinton Administration will stage a number of public events in the coming weeks to try to calm the fears of the majority of Americans polls say still oppose sending in U.S troops. "The polls aren't moving much, but the White House didn't expect them to," Carney says. "This is much like Haiti: they're trying to reassure people that the troops are in good hands." At today's event, the President delivered a speech before organizations providing humanitarian relief to Bosnians. Flanked by three Bosnian refugee families, the President made the case for intervention on humanitarian grounds: "We cannot bring back the war's victims -- so many of them were little children -- we cannot erase its horrors. But because the parties have said they will turn from war to peace, we can now prevent further suffering." Carney notes that Clinton, who got a boost today when President Bush urged Congress to back his plan, will try to muster a large bipartisan group to make similar public statements. Wednesday's lineup, he says: former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci and former Secretary of State Al Haig.