By Edward T. Pound

The Department of Defense, in a decision disclosed this week, rescinded a long-standing policy requiring female personnel deployed to Saudi Arabia to wear a neck-to-toe robe known as an abaya when off base.

The policy change was triggered by complaints from Lt. Col. Martha McSally, the highest-ranking female fighter pilot in the Air Force. McSally sued Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last year, arguing that the policy discriminated against women and violated religious freedom.

The new policy affects about 1,000 military women serving in Saudi Arabia.

Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who had pushed for the change in policy, hailed the decision. "This is a great day for all of those women who risk their lives in the name of freedom," he said. Many women, he added, "are fighting against repression in Afghanistan right now."

McSally became the first woman to pilot a combat aircraft into enemy territory when she flew her single-seat A-10 Warthog jet 100 hours over southern Iraq, enforcing the no-fly zone in the mid-1990s. Last year, she was based in Saudi Arabia running search and rescue for the Defense Department. She now is a flight instructor at an Air Force base in Arizona.

McSally quietly fought the abaya policy for six years. Frustrated with inaction by the Pentagon, she sharply criticized the policy in an interview last April with USA Today. Shortly thereafter, the Defense Department said that the policy would be reviewed. After several months of waiting for the results of that review, McSally decided to sue.

U.S. military officials say the policy was put in place after the Gulf War in 1991. It was implemented out of respect for Islamic law and Saudi customs, they said. It also was needed to protect personnel from harassment by the mutawaa, or religious police, and from potential terrorists, according to military officials.

The new policy makes wearing of the abaya optional. The change was ordered by the U.S. Central Command, which is based in Tampa and directs military operations in the Middle East. In a message, the Central Command told military officials in Saudi Arabia to revise regulations so that the wearing of the abaya "is not mandatory" though still "strongly encouraged."

John Williams, a Washington attorney representing McSally, said he would continue to press the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. He said McSally also opposed regulations prohibting female soldiers in Saudi Arabia from driving, requiring them to sit in the back seat of cars, and directing them to be escorted by men when off base. "The suit won't be dropped," Williams said, "until the offending polices are changed."

The military's abaya policy conflicted with the official guidance that the Saudi government gives to foreigners and also with the State Department's policy for its employees. The Saudis do not require non-Muslim women to wear the abaya. The official guidance says the foreigners should dress conservatively. The State Department bases its dress policy on the Saudi guidance. Its employees are not expected to wear an abaya when on official duty. When off duty, women use their own judgment about wearing the robe.