Singapore ? Myanmar’s obstruction of international efforts to help cyclone victims cost “tens of thousands of lives,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday in his strongest condemnation to date of the military government there.

“We have reached out, frankly, to Myanmar multiple times during this crisis in very direct ways,” Gates told an international audience. “It’s not been us that have been deaf and dumb in response to the pleas of the international community, but the government of Myanmar. We have reached out, they have kept their hands in their pockets.”

With U.S., British and French Navy ships off the coast of Myanmar poised to leave because they have been blocked from delivering assistance to the ravaged country, Gates said the U.S. will not forcefully bring in supplies without permission of the government, and will continue to “respect the sovereignty” of Myanmar.