'Full-Court Diplomatic Press' on Cyclone Aid

The helicopters are being off-loaded from the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, Gates said. They'll go to a Thai base where they can be within reach of Myanmar within "a matter of hours."

Mullen said it would take the ships five days to get around the Malay Peninsula to be off the coast of Myanmar most affected by the cyclone. As Gates put it, "The ships are steaming to an area off Myanmar to be available."

Gates added that there are now six C-130s in Thailand that could be available to fly in on short notice.

Both with little aid getting in, U.S. and U.N. officials have made their frustrations clear.

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"You look at the images of the people who are suffering there and you know that you have the tools just right here at your fingertips and they are at the fingertips of the Burmese to use and they are not picking the tools up to use them," said the U.S. ambassador to Thailand, Eric John. "That's incredibly … beyond frustrating. It's the level of tragedy that gets worse by the day."

As the aid sits on tarmacs in Dubai and Italy and Dhaka, Bangladesh, aid groups are beginning to hear of outbreaks of disease.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy said they believed people were suffering from diarrhea. And the World Health Organization has received reports of malaria outbreaks.

In the village of Aphyauk, villagers told an ABC News producer that they can't grow any of their crops because they spend their days cleaning up after the storm.

"Some people are ill but they are afraid to talk about it," Mae Thiwari said by phone. "At the moment, the only two things they want: food and water."

Myanmar's military government continues to refuse to issue visas to aid workers.

"A visa that they get today is worth a lot more lives than it is tomorrow," John said.

John paraded four members of a disaster response team in front of reporters to try to prove Americans were only interested in Myanmar to help. They included a 31-year-old named Anita Malley, from Kalamazoo, Mich., and a 30-year-old named Courtney Brown from Washington.

"These are humanitarian workers. They're ready to go in to help. They're not ready to go in to overthrow the government," John said with the four Americans behind him.

Asked whether aid could enter Myanmar without foreign aid workers, both American and U.N. officials said aid is useless without a team of experts who know how to distribute it.