Then-Defense Department Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not close the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to send a message that terrorism could not shut down the seat of American defense

Still, he said on BBC on Friday that he urged the president not to call the United States' response a "war" because it implied that the Pentagon could solve the problem alone.

"I think once you say the word 'war,' the implication is it's going to be a battle of bullets and tanks and airplanes," he said. "And what we're engaged in here is much more than