Transcript: Question: Mr. President. You've promised to send more troops to Afghanistan. -- CNN

With respect to Afghanistan, this is going to be a big challenge. They've got elections coming up, but effectively the national government seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community. In addition, you've got the Taliban and al Qaeda operating in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] and these border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And what we haven't seen is the kind of concerted effort to root out those safe havens that would ultimately make our mission successful.

So we are undergoing a thorough going review. Not only is Gen. [David] Petraeus -- now the head of CENTCOM -- conducting his own review; he's now working in concert with the special envoy that I've sent over, Richard Holbrooke, one of our top diplomats, to evaluate a regional approach.

We are going to need more effective coordination of our military efforts, with diplomatic efforts, with development efforts, with more effective coordination with our allies in order for us to be successful.

The bottom line though -- and I just want to remember the American people, because this is going to be difficult -- is this is a situation in which a region served as the base to launch an attack that killed 3,000 Americans.
Transcript of Obama's prime time press conference
Obama holds news conference in prime time