President Obama is "psychologically" out of Afghanistan, says author and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward.
Woodward appeared on CBS's "Early Show" Wednesday to talk about his new book "Obama's Wars".
Woodward told Harry Smith that according to interviews with military and Obama administration officials, Pakistan plays a bigger role in the Afghan war than officials publicly acknowledge.
President Obama believes that "the cancer is in Pakistan," according to a Washington Post article adapted from Woodward's book:
Not only did al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban operate from safe havens within Pakistan, but - as U.S. intelligence officials had repeatedly warned Obama - terrorist groups were recruiting Westerners whose passports would allow them to move freely in Europe and North America.
Safe havens would no longer be tolerated, Obama had decided. "We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan," he declared during an Oval Office meeting on Nov. 25, 2009, near the end of the strategy review. The reason to create a secure, self-governing Afghanistan, he said, was "so the cancer doesn't spread there."
Relations between Pakistan and the U.S. are strained, according to Woodward. Pakistani-based militants have been fighting NATO forces for some time, but the attempted Times Square bombing by Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad has heightened fears in Washington.
Obama talked about threats from Pakistan in December 2009 when he made the case for a surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has increased its drone attacks in Pakistan. ABC News reports that so far there have been 20 drone attacks in September. So far In 2010, there have been a total of 70.
Woodward's book also reveals that the CIA directs a 3,000-man army within Pakistan called the "Counterterrorism Pursuit Team."
WATCH: Woodward: Obama "psychologically" out of Afghanistan