Operation Blue Gum for Barack Obama visit gets the chainsaw

THE codename chosen for a secret policing operation to protect US President Barack Obama during his visit to Australia sounds innocuous enough.

THE codename chosen for a secret policing operation to protect US President Barack Obama during his visit to Australia sounds innocuous enough.

But calling it Operation Blue Gum, after Australia's iconic native trees, almost caused an international embarrassment.

US consular officials were aghast when briefed by their counterparts in the NSW Police Force about the title, Blue Gum. In America, a "bluegum" is offensive slang for a lazy African-American who refuses to work.

And those in the small circle of officials who became aware of the operation's name were determined to abandon it, as quietly as possible, before Mr Obama heard about it.

Before the visit was called off, all references to Blue Gum were deleted and replaced. The new name is classified but sources told The Weekend Australian that it had been checked and re-checked for any cultural sensitivities. Australian officials have been at pains to stress that most NSW Police Force operation names are generated by a computer.

"Various groups of nouns belonging to a selection of themes are entered and the operation name is generated from an existing database," a spokeswoman said last night.

Police seeking an operation name ask the computer to provide one. "This was the case in this instance," she said.

"In discussing the operation with US Consulate officials, they made NSW Police aware of a difference in the interpretation of the original operation name. The name of the security operation was revised."