cp - --force does not suppress overwrite question

[George B. Foote, Jr.]

To whom it may concern:

Using stock Red Hat Linux V 7.1

the copy command, cp, insists on producing the,

"overwrite filename?"

response even when the -f or --force option are included if there is a file 
by the same name in the target directory.  Adding all permutations of the 
--backup option produces the same result.

Clearly for updating large numbers of files using the -u option, this is 
not a satisfactory situation.

How do I solve the problem?

Thanks,

George