Tell Us Why
Explain the ban on Reagan National Airport.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
September 24, 2001 1:40 p.m.

hey locked the doors and switched off most of the lights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Friday, which remains closed for security reasons following the September 11 massacres. The decision to keep it shut down is having a terrible effect on the local economy. On normal travel days, about 45,000 people move through the airport. Now there's nobody.

Some 10,000 airport employees are without jobs today. Last week, Virginia governor Jim Gilmore said another 70,000 workers depend on Reagan National for their livelihood. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that about half of the 25,000 hotel workers in the area have either lost their jobs already or expect to lose them this week. One study says Reagan National is worth more than $5 billion to the local economy, although the closing will be felt outside of the area, too. U.S. Airways may actually go under because it depends so much on the airport: It has laid off 11,000 of its 46,000 employees around the country. The airline bailout package in Congress won't reopen the runways at Reagan it relies upon.

Last Monday, we argued in favor of restoring something like normal service to Reagan National — anything less would give the terrorists another victory, almost as though they had destroyed one more of our buildings. We suggested that Reagan National become the most secure airport in America because of the security concerns that have kept it closed.

Perhaps we are mistaken in these arguments, and Reagan National indeed poses an enormous and unique threat to important government buildings because of its location across the Potomac River from downtown Washington, D.C., and this problem simply can't be fixed. It's hard to know for sure, however, because the federal government hasn't explained the logic behind the closure. It has only said the airport is offline "indefinitely" for "security" reasons. Transportation secretary Norman Mineta says the airport's future is in the hands of the National Security Council and Secret Service.

With tens of thousands of people now losing their jobs, however, these vague explanations are no longer satisfactory. People thrown out of work deserve a full account of what's happening, and the federal government has a responsibility to give it to them. Why is Reagan National uniquely vulnerable, when in fact none of the suicide hijackers boarded planes from there? Why aren't Dulles International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Airport also closed — especially considering that the plane that crashed into the Pentagon left from Dulles? When will final decisions about the airport's future be made?

Finally, it would be nice to know who in the federal government didn't consider Reagan National a terrorist threat just a few years ago, when the airport underwent a large expansion. If tens of thousands of people in the private sector must lose their jobs because of a security oversight, it would be nice to see a few folks in the federal government accept responsibility for it. They should resign. If they don't, they should lose their jobs, too.

Gored Again
Maybe it's Al Gore's fault. After all, he ran the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security in the second term of the Clinton administration. Watch for operatives working on behalf of other Democratic presidential candidates to advertise this little-known part of Gore's resume.