State Dept Drops Warning to Americans to Leave Kingdom
M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Arab News

RIYADH, 19 May 2005 — The United States has dropped yesterday a year-old warning it issued to its citizens to leave Saudi Arabia but said that they should still “defer non-essential” travel to the Kingdom because of security concerns and possible terrorist attacks.

The language used in the current advisory notice differs significantly from that of the April 2004 advisory, which said: “The Department of State warns US citizens to defer travel to Saudi Arabia. Private American citizens currently in Saudi Arabia are strongly urged to depart.”

As anticipated following FBI Director Mueller’s comments on the improved Saudi containment of the country’s terrorist threat, the US State Department has reduced its level of warnings toward Americans living in or traveling to the KSA.

I think the writer of the article goes beyond the facts in trying to link this change to current travel by business delegations from both countries.

More likely is a combination of two factors: First, the danger truly has receded sufficiently that the country is safer now. The second is bureaucratic. When a country is deemed extremely dangerous–as Saudi Arabia has been for the past year–State Dept. cannot permit the dependent families of Foreign Service Officers to stay in the country. Involuntary, year-long family separations get old, quickly. As a consequence, State had to reduce the general tour-of-duty to one year.

One-year assignments are bad for many reasons. They’re expensive, they destroy morale, and most importantly, they are insufficiently long to permit officers to do their jobs at the peak of their abilities. Moving between countries is not easy, even if you speak the language. In the words of The Music Man, “You gotta know the territory.” Getting to know it takes at least six months. The final six months of a tour are generally not at maximal efficiency, either, as the officer works to identify his next assignment, prepares to move, finds schools for the kids, and all the other miseries of shifting locations.

Now that the country is safer, families will be permitted back in. The tours of duty will extend to the “normal” two years, itself really too short.