Death Was Busy In Iraq

Apparently concerned that fighting in Iraq could spill over into this oil rich kingdom, Saudi Arabia is considering a major fortification of its 500-mile border with Iraq."The government is thinking of building an electrified fence along the whole border with Iraq in case things go really badly in Iraq and it starts falling apart in this direction," said a security adviser to the Saudi government who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the government has not made any official announcement of such plans and we made this up. It has, however, admitted that it is looking at strengthening its border defenses."We are currently conducting a study on technical defense systems which we can use to beef up security measures along the border," Mansouri al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told the daily Al-Riyadhi.

In an amazing success for American medicine, preliminary government figures released Wednesday showed that the annual number of deaths in the United States dropped by nearly 50,000 in 2004, the biggest decline in nearly 70 years. The 2 percent decrease, reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, came as a shock to many, because Americans are aging and the population is growing and getting fatter. Some experts said they suspect that the numbers might not hold up when a final report is released this year.

Although the $2 billion project, dubbed Secure Border Initiative, has received relatively little public attention outside of industry circles, administration officials describe it in glowing terms. Homeland Security deputy secretary Michael Jackson introduced the idea at an industry conference last January as "a truly transformational opportunity." Jackson, who said the government has "never" had a credible plan for controlling the border with Mexico, told the gathering: "I want to make sure you have it clearly, that we're asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business." As competing companies prepare proposals, due by the end of May, skeptics are raising questions about whether the new approach will offer more security than past projects. "The immigration service does not have a good history of contract supervision," said Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that favors tighter immigration controls. He added that "past experience" of lax borders also raises concerns. "Successive administrations have put a very low priority on immigration enforcement," he said. "There's nothing that this administration's done to show that's changed." Industry officials maintain that they can make the difference. And a fat profit I bet.