THE HAGUE — The phrase "war on terror," for seven years a signature expression of the Bush administration, has been shelved, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged Monday.
Clinton said there had been no directive from her office or within the Obama administration, but she said officials had stopped using the term.
"The administration has stopped using the phrase, and that speaks for itself, obviously," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane on the way to a meeting in the Netherlands.
Former President Bush adopted the phrase "war on terror" to define U.S. policy after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon Pentagon officials began simply using the initials for "global war on terror" -- GWOT.
