NPR's Tom Gjelten reports that President Clinton has agreed in principle to contribute as many as several thousand US troops to a proposed multinational effort to get food and medicine to about a million refugees in eastern Zaire. A White House spokesman said that once such a force is established, perhaps one thousand American troops would deploy in Zaire, helping provide security at a key airport and along special corridors set up to get aid to the mostly Rwandan refugees cut off by recent fighting. The spokesman said most of the US forces would be outside of Zaire, acting in support of the aid operation.
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