Don't Let Terrorists Close Reagan National

The Hill

September 26, 2001

In the days since terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we have been told that the world has been forever changed, but that we shouldn't allow fear to determine how we go about living our lives.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others have made it clear that if we give up our liberties because of our fear of the next terrorist attack or alter the way we live and work in a free society, the terrorists will have won. Rumsfeld said it as well as anyone before the fires at the Pentagon had even been brought under control. He told an interviewer, "The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. It is to alter behavior—to force people who believe in freedom to be less free. That's not the way Americans live, and it's not the way we want to live."

Most Americans instinctively believe the same thing. Their reaction has been more defiant than fearful. Polls taken since the attacks in New York and Washington reflect this. They show Americans as a people willing to take reasonable measures to protect ourselves, but a people willing to neither give up traditional rights nor crawl into a hole lest Osama bin Laden's terrorists get them.

They are more likely to agree with Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (R), who said on the Senate floor last week that he isn't much interested in changing the way he lives as a result of what's happened but very interested in changing the way the terrorists live.

Within days of its collapse, New Yorkers and others were demanding that the World Trade Center be rebuilt as a symbol of the American spirit and to show the world that, even when we're knocked down, we get up and move forward.

It would be safer to crawl into a hole, to change the way we live, but that's not likely to happen given our history and the way the attacks united most of us.

In the wake of the attacks, the government grounded all civilian aircraft within the United States. That was a prudent move under the circumstances, as was the decision to get them back into the air again once everything was sorted out and even as we begin implementing additional security measures to prevent future hijackings.

But here in Washington, Reagan National Airport remains closed and there are those who suggest that it should never be reopened. It is, they tell us, too close to the Pentagon, the White House and the Capitol.

It would be safer, they are telling us, to write off the billions just spent to renovate the place, forget about the more than 10,000 people who worked there until Sept. 11, and tell the 45,000 people who used it everyday to find other ways in and out of Washington.

And they are right. It would take planes hijacked from Dulles Airport or BWI at least another minute to hit a Washington target and that minute might prove crucial. We would be buying a measure of safety by changing the way we live.

The economic costs of doing so would, of course, be enormous. In addition to the jobs at the airport itself, the area would lose something like $5 billion a year if Reagan National doesn't reopen, and US Airways will be history. Dulles and BWI are already overcapacity, and not everyone can come and go by taxi, bus or train.

The way to protect us, of course, is to take reasonable precautions to prevent hijackers from seizing airliners regardless of where they take off and land. Better airport security, armed cockpit crews, sky marshals and secure cockpit doors seem like reasonable responses to what has happened.

If these and other measures aren't sufficient to protect our seat of government and the flying public, we've got a problem much too big to be solved by closing one airport. The Sears Tower in Chicago is but minutes from O'Hare and Midway airports. Should they be closed?

And what about LaGuardia and JFK airports? There is fear in some quarters that terrorists might next target the Empire State Building. Would it not be safer to close these airports to protect this landmark and the men and women who work there?

The answer to all these questions is the same. Yes. It would be safer to close Reagan National, O'Hare, Midway, LaGuardia and JFK. It would even be safer to give up flying altogether.

But we're Americans and not likely to do that. That's why the World Trade Center will be rebuilt in some form and it's why Reagan National should be reopened as soon as possible.

Then we can get on with the job of changing the way they live.

David Keene is the chairman of the American Conservative Union and a managing associate with the Carmen Group, a Washington, D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm.