Washington ? The current passport mess is rare among government foul-ups: A top federal official has publicly taken the blame and expressed regret.

“Over the past several months, many travelers who applied for a passport did not receive their document in time for their planned travel. I deeply regret that,” says Assistant Secretary of State Maura Harty, who is in charge of U.S. passports. “I accept complete responsibility for this.”

The sorry episode originated three years ago with the final report of the Sept. 11 commission. “For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons,” the report said.

The commission noted that Americans could return to the United States from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean without passports. The report said Americans should not be exempt from having to show a passport or other secure identification when entering the U.S.

Before 2004 ended, Congress enacted this passport requirement. The Bush administration spent two years getting ready.

On Nov. 22, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that as of Jan. 23, Americans visiting Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda by air would need passports. The requirement will not take effect for land and sea travelers until sometime between the summer of 2008 and June 2009.

Demand not met

The State and Homeland Security departments began a publicity blitz about the new requirement. The government even paid to run its announcement on lighted outdoor news tickers in New York to reach the national television audience for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Five passport offices were expanded and a new one opened, Harty told the House Foreign Affairs Committee this month. Other offices were put on double or round-the-clock shifts.

The State Department set up a call center where people could schedule appointments nationwide and created a Web site – tinyurl.com/3a59al – where they could check the status of an application.

In 2005 and 2006, the department hired 1,366 passport adjudicators, fraud prevention workers, trainers and managers and contract support workers. An additional 1,222 have been hired so far this year.

But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., suggested the hiring was mishandled. He said the department planned to have 400 to 500 more full-time passport adjudicators – the key workers – by 2006. But he got Harty to acknowledge that only 290 had been added as of this month.

Harty’s office consulted with the Homeland Security Department and the travel industry, analyzed historical trends and hired the consulting company BearingPoint to conduct a study. Based on all this research, it projected that the number of passports issued would rise from 12.1 million in 2006 to 16.2 million this year.

“We miscalculated,” Harty told Congress. Her office now estimates it is on track to issue 17.7 million this year.

Unnecessary applications

Harty attributes the miscalculation partly to poor government advertising.

“An awful lot of people have applied who don’t need passports yet” because they are driving to Canada or Mexico, Harty said. The government’s media efforts “didn’t get the word out who actually needed a passport and who didn’t.”

Many other people are applying even though they have no travel plans – “something that we’ve never seen before” – possibly because of the national immigration debate, Harty said. “The passport is becoming something like a national ID card.”

“People are concerned they need to prove they are citizens,” for employment and to receive federal benefits, she said.