What American diplomat Kenneth Adelman famously called the looming invasion of Iraq in a 2002 Washington Post column.

A euphemism for anyone killed accidentally during a military strike — often civilian noncombatants.

The culminating act in a military strategy intended to remove the leadership of an enemy government. The invasion of Iraq began with a failed decapitation strike against Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood; neither Hussein nor any other member of Iraqi leadership was in the area at the time, but innocent civilians were.