I just dont understand how nations even survive given some of the catastrophic situations they have to deal with. This heartbreaking

40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — President Bush called on Myanmar's military junta on Tuesday to allow the United States to provide disaster assistance after a devastating cyclone.

"The United States has made an initial aid contribution but we want to do a lot more," Bush said in the Oval Office. "We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country."

The death toll from Tropical Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, also known as Burma, has soared above 22,000. The storm hit the Southeast Asian country early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless.

"So our message is to the military rulers: let the United States come and help you help the people," Bush said.

The U.S. Navy has three ships in the Gulf of Thailand that could be dispatched to Myanmar if needed. The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, as well as two other vessels in its strike group — the USS Juneau and the USS Harper's Ferry — are there preparing to participate in an annual exercise with Thailand naval forces.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.S. military is ready to move Navy ships to Myanmar but will not do that until assistance is authorized. The Navy said it would take the ships about four days to make the trip.

At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said members of a disaster assistance response team were standing by and could get to Myanmar "very, very quickly" when the government gives permission for them to enter the country.

He said the United States was looking at ways to augment an initial emergency contribution of $250,000 to the United Nations and other international relief agencies, but noted the process would be easier if U.S. experts were allowed to make onsite inspections.

"There are certain things with this kind of disaster that you know are needed, but it would help certainly in making our assessments to have people there on the ground to see what exactly is needed," McCormack told reporters.

First lady Laura Bush on Monday also appeared to link the provision of additional aid, beyond the initial infusion of $250,000 from a U.S. Embassy emergency fund, to entry permission for the assessment team.

But White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Tuesday that additional help is not conditional on the regime allowing the assessment team in. The government's permission would just allow "more aid, more quickly," mostly because it would allow the two ships in the region to use their considerable loads of emergency supplies to help, he said.

"I'd say there's multiple tracks," Johndroe said, referring to ways that the U.S. could help, with or without cooperation from Myanmar's military dictatorship. One option is to funnel all aid through non-governmental organizations already working on the ground.

In France, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also expressed regret over Myanmar's policy on international aid, saying the country insists only on aid that the government would distribute itself and has spurned French as well as U.S. offers of personnel.

The country's modus operandi is "not a good way of doing things," said Kouchner, the co-founder of French aid group Doctors Without Borders, said he himself had applied for a visa to travel to Myanmar to help coordinate, but was highly doubtful it would be granted.

France has so far proposed $309,200 in aid. "It's not a lot but we don't really trust the way the Burmese ministry would use the money," he said.

President Bush spoke at a ceremony where he signed legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.

"This is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman who speaks for freedom for all the people of Burma and who speaks in such a way that she's a powerful voice, in contrast to the junta that currently rules the country," Bush said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

This is such a tragedy. Those poor people

crazy weather this world has! So horrible for all those people...

I know...And the death toll just keeps rising I just read on top of this there is an epidemic viral thing going on in China...Many children are dying...Hand, foot and mouth disease I guess...WTF is going on man?

Sorry for the blah post...This stuff just tears at my heart strings. And makes me feel fn useless

Its just terrible. My prayers go out to them. This weather is just freaky.

Beyond words.

i have to quit reading news like this after the first couple days; i literally cannot function if i continue reading, and there's soooo much, so many places, going on, where help is needed... makes me feel so ineffective and helpless...

I cant believe these people arent getting the aid they need...Not only that, they are being forced to leave the makeshift refugee camps and forced to go back to their destroyed homes...No clean water, food or housing for thousands...WTF is wrong with this government??? Theirs I mean...Not that ours is great, hell Katrina survivors are still displaced