I believe he did say, "the first war of the 21st Century." At least that's the quote I heard.

He also said [today or yesterday] that "we" [Americans] have never seen such an atrocity before [or "never seen evil of this magnitude" before, or words to that effect]. I couldn't help wondering, "Did you ever hear of Hitler, Pol Pot [sp?], Stalin, etc?"

I don't know if it is just that he is not linguistically facile or that he is extraordinary nation-ocentric [to coin a word].

Arg