Adm. Keating: 'We're Anxious to Help'

May 15, 2008— -- The situation in the hardest-hit areas of cyclone-ravaged Myanmar, also known as Burma, is deteriorating rapidly -- even with lifesaving help just a few miles away.

Despite the growing crisis and urgent pleas from world leaders, Myanmar's rulers refuse to allow much available aid and relief workers into the country.

For Adm. Timothy Keating, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, getting help to victims of Cyclone Nargis has become a personal crusade. He traveled halfway around the world this week to accompany the first plane load of U.S. supplies.

On the ground, he met with the head of Myanmar's navy and made a plea: Let us help your people. The response, however, wasn't all he wanted to hear.

"You know, there was a general air of 'Things aren't all that bad' we got from him," Keating told ABC News in an interview.

The humanitarian situation in Myanmar is increasingly desperate. Aid groups estimate there are millions of victims. The official death toll is more than 34,000, and experts expect that number to rise severalfold.

Only 13 U.S. plane loads of aid have been allowed into the country, a fraction of what is needed. The first was allowed to land Monday, more than a week after the storm hit.

Meanwhile, four U.S. Navy ships are waiting 50 miles off the coast with urgently needed medical equipment, doctors, water purification systems, shelter and food. Most importantly, they have H-46 cargo helicopters that are ready to get the supplies to people in need.

"Everything we can get our hands on, we're moving now," Keating said. "We'd like to move more. We have more capacity to lift and haul than we're filling."

The admiral has described the current effort as "better than 10 percent" but "well under what we could do at full effort."

So why won't Myanmar's leaders let more experts and supplies in?

"They're concerned about their security," Keating said. "There is a sense in the Burmese junta leadership that once countries are in in military form, that those countries may not leave. I did my personal and professional best to assure them that we will leave no fingerprints."

Experts say that Myanmar's leaders, described by one U.S. official last week as "paranoid," are concerned only about their survival and view aid workers as a potential first wave of invaders.

"As soon as our work there is done, we will leave," Keating said he told officials in Myanmar. "They will see nothing remaining of the United States military when this operation is over."

Given the regime's reluctance to allow aid workers and supplies into the country, some have suggested the international community should send aid in, even without permission, in order to relieve the growing humanitarian crisis.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested the international community invoke a clause in a 2005 United Nations document saying countries have a "responsibility to protect" their citizens, and calling on the international community to act if they fail to do so.

Legal experts say it may be hard to use that clause as pretext for air dropping or otherwise sending in aid without government approval, pointing out that the effort would instead get bogged down in legal debate and face stiff opposition from countries like China and Russia that hold vetoes in the U.N. Security Council.

Keating told ABC News, "We have no intention of, quote, invading their country or penetrating their airspace -- I mean, anything of that, landing any ships or any arrangement without the explicit approval of the government of Burma."

Keating was optimistic, however, saying he thinks approval to send in more help will soon come from Myanmar's shadowy leadership.

"I would not be surprised if, in a day or two, we don't start sling loading, putting H-46s with cargo nets underneath them, and get permission to carry those relief supplies to where they're needed. I think we'll get permission," he said.

Privately, however, other U.S. officials admit they're frustrated by the slow response of Myanmar's leaders and say that it is "sickening" that, two weeks after the cyclone, aid is still awaiting transport -- and that while the storm's survivors face disease or starvation, the country's military leaders seem most concerned about their own survival.