Passports

It was a simple, yet unsettling, question. "Is your passport American?" "Yes." "They've lost it." "Can they find it?" "God willing." The guard at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo said nothing else and wandered away. Behind thick glass, two men in the visa department -- one on his knees, the other hunched in a chair -- dumped out basket upon basket of passports that floated on the floor like a green sea around them. They were searching for a fleck of blue. Passports were tossed and scattered, a life-size, briskly shaken snow globe with ominous consequences.

With the recession choking foreign travel, passport applications are plunging and the workload at the State Department is easing enough that those applying are getting their documents in three weeks or less. The State Department said last week that it expected to issue 12 million passports this fiscal year, about 25% fewer than last year. In early December, it was forecasting 17 million passports for the year ending Sept. 30.