how to statically link PHP 5.2.x + Apache httpd 2.2.x?

Hi all,

I'm in the midst of setting up my production server, which will be 
running on a fully chrooted non-root LAMP configuration. Due to my 
high demands for performance and security, I've been advised by 
several resources on the net to statically link PHP into Apache. 
However, all information I could find seems to pertain to very old 
Apache 1.3.x configurations, which are no longer compatible with the 
current configure scripts.

In the past few days, I've tried my best to build a libphp5.a static 
library using various configure arguments, but to no avail. I'm 
starting to wonder if it's at all possible to statically link PHP 
5.2.x into httpd 2.2.x! Some information about my build system: httpd 
2.2.13, PHP 5.2.11, gcc 4.1.2, binutils 2.18 on CentOS 5.2. My last 
unsuccessful ./configure line reads as follows: 
"./configure  --prefix=/chroot/apache2/php --with-iconv=/usr/local 
--enable-static"

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Bye, Ro