Editorial: Mobilize to meet deadlines

Monday, Aug. 12, 2002 | 8:51 a.m.

Within weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a new U.S. government agency sprang to life. It was called the War Production Board and its mission was to convert a peacetime economy into one concentrating on the mass production of war materials. Soon almost everyone in the country was helping in some way to support the new and retooled factories. The board's success remains one of the great stories of World War II. In contrast, today, 10 months after the United States declared a war on terrorism and Congress made bold avowals about homeland security, there is none of that era's aura of national urgency.

Times have changed, of course, but nevertheless it's wrong that our country's potential for industrial mobilization hasn't been realized this late into our new war. We refer specifically to the lament of airport managers, who almost to a person are saying they can't meet the Dec. 31 federal deadline for having the latest bomb detection technology installed to screen all baggage. Their floors aren't reinforced enough yet to handle the weight of the machines. Their current floor plans are inadequate for the size of the machines. Worst of all, only two companies manufacture the devices and they are nowhere near close to producing enough of them to meet the demand by the nation's 429 major airports. McCarran Airport alone needs 60 of the large, explosive detection machines but has only seven.

We see a need for a modern-day War Production Board, established as part of the Office of Homeland Security. A tiny fraction of the energy expanded during World War II could get those airport floors reinforced, the rooms expanded and the machines rolling out of the production plants in time for Dec. 31.