Posted on 09/06/2014 8:15:56 PM PDT by T Ruth
Fence expected to extend along 900 kilometers of the northern border; state press agency says it will secure 'against infiltrators and smugglers.'
Saudi Arabia is building a sophisticated fence along its northern border to secure the desert kingdom “against infiltrators and smugglers,” according to the Saudi Press Agency.
The first stage of the border security program was announced by Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Friday. The first phase will stretch for 900 kilometers (560 miles) on the country’s northern frontier.
The project includes five layers of fencing, reinforced by watch towers, night-vision cameras and radar. Control complexes have been built in areas stretching from Hafr Al Batin in the northeast to Turaif near the Jordanian border, SPA said.
The project will include eight command and control center, 32 rapid response centers, three rapid intervention squads, 38 back and front gates, 78 monitoring towers, 10 monitoring and surveillance vehicles, 1,450,000 meters of fiber optics networks and 50 radars.
The kingdom expects the fence to cut the "number of infiltrators, drug, arms and cattle smugglers to zero," SPA said.
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(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
“Wish they had included a cost estimate.”
...and a schedule.
The bottom line is that we tend to spend an average of about $4 million to build a mile of border fence, but it varies widely due to type and terrain.
The article says that they signed a contract with EADS in 2009, and they had a photo of a soldier in a tower monitoring a stretch that was already operational.
Their terrain is some of the easiest to fence - flat, open, and with little vegetation growth to manage. Nonetheless, their basic approach could be replicated over much of the US/Mexico border - multiple layers of fence sandwiching a no man’s land wired with multiple sensor systems, and reaction forces regularly spaced all along. We have tended to build single layer fencing about 15-20 feet tall with an access road and some surveillance.
They were going to do a 900 km (540 mile) segment (the part bordering Iraq) out of their larger total border project, while we have about a 2,000 mile border with Mexico. We averaged about 200 miles per year when we were building (2006-2009), with 670 miles complete. Another 700 miles was authorized in 2013, but this is supposed to be double layer, so it should be somewhat more expensive, but operationally it will have strong advantages.
I would imagine that they have a jump on the surveying and planning after the earlier round of construction, but it will have to be updated. No doubt the administration will slow roll things, while the left throws up roadblocks.
I understand that Boeing was in on building a virtual fence and received more then $1 billion that did nothing to secure the border. The contract was cancelled in 2011.
Yes, it is impossible to build a fence in the US. I hear there are mountains and rivers.
(not enough to deter a huge interstate highways system with bridges, 4 lanes, over and under passes, signage, gazillions of square yards of concrete and metal over some of the most difficult mountain ranges, deserts, and waterways of the world...
But a fence? Why....that’s impossible. Simply impossible.
/sarc
Try a mine field. Low maintenance and definitely works.
I say hire the illegals to build the wall at our borders; then
open the gate and escort them back over to Mexico.
There..cheap labor, a fence, illegal immmigration solved.
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