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Navy awaits Myanmar’s decision on aid

President Bush on Tuesday urged the military junta leaders in Myanmar to accept assistance from U.S. Navy ships and military forces in the region poised to help the nation recover from a devastating cyclone.

More than $3 million is being allocated through the U.S. Agency for International Development to help the residents of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, the White House announced.

“We urge the government of Burma to grant full access to the affected areas to international humanitarian relief teams and nongovernmental organizations so that they can help provide assistance to those in need,” White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters during a Tuesday briefing, according to a transcript.

“In addition to the $3 million, the other thing that we have in the region is a Marine expeditionary unit with ... ships there with naval personnel that were doing exercises for disaster assistance and disaster relief. So we have multiple ways that we can support them,” Perino said. “This would be our initial assessment for what we think is the need right now, and we’ll continue to work with the U.N. or any other organization that is allowed into Burma to try to help the Burmese people.”

The naval force nearest to the hard-hit region is the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, with more than 2,000 Marines embarked on three amphibious ships, including the amphibious assault ship Essex. The Essex Expeditionary Strike Group, normally based in Japan, is operating in the Gulf of Thailand, off Thailand’s eastern coast, and preparing for the scheduled “Cobra Gold” exercises that begin on Thursday, Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, said Tuesday afternoon.

“They are four or five days steaming time away,” Davis said.

Expeditionary strike groups typically carry “a significant amount” of humanitarian supplies, such as food, diapers and baby formula, when they deploy, he said.

“The U.S. government has not been asked to provide any assets as of this time,” Davis added, noting, “We just don’t go into a sovereign foreign country without first being asked.”

The command ship Blue Ridge, which serves as the flagship for the Japan-based U.S. 7th Fleet, is also in the region near Singapore, Davis said. The Navy has two aircraft carriers — the nuclear-powered Nimitz and conventionally-powered Kitty Hawk — operating in the waters off Japan.

Another option would be the Navy’s hospital ship Mercy, which left its San Diego home last week for a four-month humanitarian deployment to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. But as of Tuesday, Mercy, which is carrying hundreds of Navy Seabees and military, U.S. Public Health Service and civilian medical teams for the scheduled deployment, remained at least two or three weeks away.

The death toll from Tropical Cyclone Nargis has soared above 22,000. The storm hit early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

The U.S. government has offered to send disaster assessment teams into Myanmar government. “The assistance that we are providing is needs-based and it’s dependent on only us wanting to help them,” Perino said. “And if the unfortunate circumstance comes to pass that our team is not granted the visas in order to get into the area, we will continue to work out of Bangkok, and we will work with the U.N. agencies or anyone else who is able to get there. But certainly the relief that the Burmese people need would be much better handled if we could get into the country.”

Last year, U.S. assessment teams along with Marines and Navy ships with two expeditionary strike groups — including the assault ships Kearsarge and Tarawa — helped Bangladeshis the aftermath of a severe cyclone that struck the coastal region in November and killed more than 3,000.