George,

I agree with Mary MacNeil's (September 28, 2001) assessment of the military and the White House need to put a name to a military operation. I suppose they think it will be easier for future historians to more readily access information cataloged under some arcane title! ... I think some PR guy was assigned the task (at a price) to come up with a gobbledygook name that will essentially obscure the fact that this "operation" will involve loss of life, maiming and suffering ... fighting an enemy we armed and trained earlier. "Operation Dumb Dumb" might be more appropriate.

As a point of reference, D-Day* was an old WW1 term. The actual invasion on June 6,1944 was given the "handle", "Operation Overlord."

Harry Tenney (Electronic Mail, October 5, 2001).

*D day (noun) [Dutch, abbreviation for day] first appeared 1918 : a day set for launching an operation; specifically, June 6, 1944, on which Allied forces began the invasion of France in World War II.