Passport Processing: All Hands on Deck

Two years ago, here's what Maura Harty, head of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the State Department's passport processing office, had to say about impending requirements that passports be used for travel between the United States and neighboring countries:

"I don't want anybody to run out tomorrow and buy a passport because two-and-a-half years from now they're thinking about a trip."

Here's what she had to say yesterday:

"One of the things we failed to predict was how quickly Americans would decide to apply for a passport ... It was a mistake."

So what is Harty doing to deal with the backlog of passport applications? According to the St. Petersburg Times, "Hiring 1,400 employees since January. Expanding several regional centers. Keeping [the agency's] main processing center in Portsmouth, N.H., open all night. Adding a megacenter in Arkansas. Harty's department now is churning out more than 1.5-million passports a month."

Also, the Washington Post's Al Kamen reports, she's begging Foreign Service officers to pitch in as volunteers at passport processing offices around the country.