WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will continue to send emergency assistance to Myanmar’s cyclone victims, despite concerns that the country’s military government may be confiscating the aid or diverting it away from those most in need.
Officials from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development said Wednesday that the crisis is so severe, they are willing to risk aid winding up in the wrong hands or for sale to ensure that at least some gets through. So, for the moment at least, they said supplies would keep flowing if the junta allows it.
At the Pentagon on Wed nesday, a senior officer said the U.S. military has proposed using U.S. helicopters inside Myanmar to help distribute aid arriving at the airport in Yangon. He said Myanmar authorities have not accepted the proposal.
