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I think soon after I became director of the CIA - President Obama pulled me into the Oval Office and said: 'Look, I just want you to know that your top priority is to go after Osama bin Laden.'

We need to defeat al Queda and other terrorist organizations.

We need a commander in chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words 'radical Islamic terrorism'.

I've been in a position before where a president has turned to me in the Oval Office in a difficult moment, without any pleasantries, and said, 'I'm asking you as your president and Commander in Chief to take command of the international security force in Afghanistan.' The only response can be, 'Yes, Mr. President.'

Osama bin Laden is going after us to get us out of the region, so he can deal with the regimes that he sees in the region, or replace them with purists.

This is a global effort we're going to have to lead to overcome this jihadist effort. It's more than Osama bin Laden. But he is going to pay, and he will die.

We know that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has some very dangerous, very important leaders who are tied directly to the top leadership of al Qaeda central, including a man who was formerly Osama bin Laden's secretary.

Bin Laden is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he doesn't like us, what he intends to do about it and then following up and doing something about it in terms of military actions.

Al Qaeda likes to coordinate, have a central command to be able to send out emissaries around that they have highly trained and say, 'This is the moment we're going to do a large-scale attack.'

You would have thought that after 9/11 the president would have finished the job in Afghanistan, and kept the focus on capturing Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda deputies, but he and his team gave top priority to their original plan to invade Iraq.