I wonder if I could borrow your forum to point out just one of the factual errors in Ivan Briscoe's reply to my article on Spain's election. Mr Briscoe gives three 'reasons' why he thinks the vote in Spain was not a victory for al-Qaida. The first two reasons are very much open to dispute while the third is simply wrong. Mr Briscoe writes that: 'The third reason to reject the “al-Qaida victory” theory refers to the honourable tradition that already exists in Washington of strategic withdrawal in the name of mollifying terrorists. Donald Rumsfeld himself, after all, presided over the final retreat of US troops from Saudi Arabia – one of the main rallying calls of al-Qaida in the 1990s – shortly after the end of “major combat operations” in Iraq.' U.S. troops had been in Saudi since the first Gulf War, as I'm sure Mr Briscoe knows. What I am not sure he knows (or if he does know he pretends not to) is that the troops were put there to protect the Kingdom against a certain neighbour with a penchant for invading surrounding countries - namely Saddam Hussein, the then dictator of Iraq. The fact that Donald Rumsfeld could announce the withdrawal, last April, of U.S. troops from Saudi was not (as Mr Briscoe seems to think) because he was inspired to 'mollify terrorists' but rather, and rather obviously, because the threat to Saudi Arabia had disappeared. That threat which had disappeared turned up more than six months later in a hole just South of Tikrit, and seems unlikely to cause a strategic nuisance again. The U.S. provided troops to protect Saudi Arabia. When Saudi Arabia no longer needed protecting the U.S. troops withdrew. A fine example of great and, I would say, typically benevolent U.S. foreign policy.