In the first White House press briefing since Karoline Leavitt left as press secretary, the vice president suggested that when the conflict would end was up to Tehran.
Page B1From§Eachthe milkman edition — 4 September 2026
Pentagon retires 'Operation Epic Fury' nickname, Vance retires the word 'war' next
As it ran on the front
"Operation Epic Fury" died this week, of embarrassment, at the Pentagon, where it had lived a short and blustery life. It was born sometime after strikes on Iran, the way these names always are, dreamed up by someone with a whiteboard and a taste for movie trailers, and it did not last the season. The Department of Defense confirmed the death by memo, instructing personnel to stop using the name in official communications, without further explanation, which is usually how you know a name has become a liability rather than a slogan.
It is survived by no successor name, at least none yet announced, and by a great deal of paperwork that will need retyping.…
…(cont) It was preceded in death, by about a news cycle, by the word "war" itself, which the Vice President declined to apply to the underlying conflict at all. Asked directly, he said he wouldn't call it that. So we now have neither the fury nor the epic — we have an event with no acceptable noun, a war-shaped hole in the sentence where the word "war" used to sit.
This is not a new trick. Whippersnapper press officers have been doing it since the mimeograph, dressing up the plain thing in a name that sounds like a video game, then quietly walking the name back once the plain thing gets noticed anyway. It is malarkey, dressed as operational security. And it is, at bottom, a little bit of shit to ask the people who fought in it, or lost someone in it, to sort out on their own what to call it.
What died here is not a war — people do not get the dignity of an obituary in this column, and neither does this one. What died is the government's willingness to name what it is doing while it is doing it. That's a small thing to bury, and it will not get flowers, because nobody sends flowers for a memo.
In lieu of flowers, the Pentagon might consider simply telling the public, in one plain sentence, what it is currently doing in Iran, and what to call it.
“They didn't lose a word, they retired it on purpose, same as they retired the flashy code name once reporters started noticing it. Call it a war and you owe people hearings, funding reports, maybe a vote. Call it nothing and you just owe them silence.”
“Operational naming conventions change all the time, that's just standard practice, doesn't mean anything's being hidden — I mean, obviously if you call it a war there's a whole legal framework that kicks in, war powers, funding disclosures, so it's simpler to just, uh — okay that sounds bad said out loud. What I meant is, terminology evolves.”
The receipts
CBS News has obtained an email showing that the Pentagon told personnel in July to stop calling the war in Iran "Operation Epic Fury." The Pentagon says the operation officially ended May 5. Former Trump national security adviser H. R.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.