THE HAGUE ~ The new US administration of Barack Obama has discreetly abandoned the expression “war on terror” adopted by former president George W. Bush, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

Replying to a question on a plane bringing her to The Hague on Monday, Clinton declared: “As you said, the administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself, obviously.”

The secretary of state, who was to take part in an international conference on Afghanistan in the Dutch administrative capital, said of the phrase: “I haven’t heard it used. I haven’t gotten any directive about using it or not using it. It’s just not being used.”

The Bush administration that preceded Obama in the White House used the “war on terror” to justify its intervention in Iraq, as well as its imprisonment of detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba and secret CIA prisons abroad.

Since he came to power in late January, Obama has committed himself to breaking with these practices, with a pledge to withdraw progressively from Iraq and to close Guantanamo within one year.