US servicewomen allowed to discard Saudi dress

The American military has discreetly issued a directive reversing a policy that required US servicewomen stationed in Saudi Arabia to wear head-to-toe gowns whenever they left the confines of their air base.

General Tommy Franks, who is responsible for operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East, has sent a memo to regional commanders noting servicewomen should be strongly encouraged to don so-called "abaya" robes off-base but that wearing them should no longer be obligatory.

The decision to scrap the policy, which was brought in to show respect for Islamic sensibilities in the kingdom, comes after a lawsuit filed against Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, last month by the most senior female fighter pilot in the US Air Force.

Lieutenant-Colonel Martha McSally filed the suit after campaigning to have the abaya direction rescinded for seven year without any success.

While the change of tack might spare Mr Rumsfeld distraction at home, the timing may not be good for already strained American-Saudi relations. Senior members of Congress recently raised the possibility of America ending its military presence in Saudi Arabia. There have also been reports that the Saudi rulers are themselves thinking of asking the Americans to leave.

However, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah reasserted all was well with Washington. "Our relations with America and, in particular, with its government headed by President George Bush are excellent," Prince Abdullah, the country's de facto ruler, told Saudi newspapers.

A wide coalition of figures had come to Colonel McSally's side. Many saw a strange irony in the position of the United States which, on the one hand, had triumphed in liberating Afghan women who were forced by Taliban rulers to wear the burqa, a robe that is similar but even more restrictive than the abaya, while, on the other, it continued to require its own women in Saudi Arabia to cover up. What remains unclear is whether the McCarthy suit, backed by the Rutherford Institute, a conservative advocacy group in the US, will now be dropped.

In it, Colonel McSally also demands America does away with accompanying provisions that forbid servicewomen from driving cars off-base in Saudi Arabia and requiring they sit in the back of the car and be accompanied everywhere by men.

The Franks memo, which will affect about 1,000 US servicewomen in the kingdom, does nothing to address those other provisions, however. John Whitehead, who leads the Rutherford Institute, said: "I think the mountain has moved, but I don't know how far."

The Pentagon is not about to give any credit to Colonel McSally for the change. Her lawsuit did not inspire the policy change, Colonel Rick Thomas, a Central Command spokes-man insisted. "The policy was under review before the lawsuit, so the change was not a direct result of that," he said.

More pressing for Washington now is the larger question of how much longer it will be using the Prince Sultan Air Base, just outside Riyadh.

America is responsible for the kingdom's defence, but its royal rulers are reportedly under growing pressure from conservative Islamic voices to push out the US forces. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, but has tried at the same time to keep close ties to the West.

In addition, there has been simmering anger towards Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill, where there is a sense that the kingdom has done too little to help America in its war against terrorism.

It does not help in this regard that Osama bin Laden is a native of the land and that many of the hijackers on 11 September were also Saudis. About 5,000 US military personnel have been station in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf War.

"We may need to move that base," Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said last week. He said the Saudis had pressed US personnel to operate at a base in a remote region and seemed to "want us out of sight". An alternative would be to station the US troops instead in neighbouring Qatar.