THE HAGUE (AFP) - 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 late Monday. Replying to a question on the plane bringing her to The Hague, she declared: As you said, the Administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself, obviously. She said of the phrase: I havent heard it used. I havent gotten any directive about using it or not using it. Its 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.