U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said there is no decision yet on how to change Iraq and Afghan policies.

He made the remarks at his first press conference as president.

"I do not have yet a timetable for how long that's going to take. What I know is I'm not going to make -- I'm not going to allow al-Qaeda or bin Laden to operate with impunity, planning attacks on the U.S. homeland," he said, responding to a question on what's his timetable to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

"With respect to Afghanistan, this is going to be a big challenge," Obama said.

On Iraq, the president also stopped short of mentioning the time table.

"We just saw an election in Iraq that went relatively peacefully and you get a sense that the political system is now functioning in a meaningful way."

Then he switched the topic to Afghanistan.

"You do not see that yet in Afghanistan. They've got elections coming up, but effectively the national government seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community," said the president.

"We are undergoing a thorough going review...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," Obama said.

The president said the bottom line of his Afghan policy is that "we cannot allow al-Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region. And we're going to have to work both smartly and effectively, but with consistency in order to make sure that those safe havens don't exist."

Two weeks ago, Obama said he is going to make some tough choices on Iraq and Afghanistan, as the White House hints such a decision will come "relatively soon".

The Pentagon is looking to draw down the U.S. troop presence in Iraq while sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama took up the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan from the first full day in office because he made a promise on the two wars during his presidential campaign.

He pledged to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months after swearing-in and shifting focus to Afghanistan.

That will mean a quicker withdrawal than the plan written in an agreement signed by the former Bush administration and the Iraq government last year, which says the United States will pull out all troops from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

However, Obama changed tone recently, saying he will seek to end the war in Iraq in a "responsible way".

That's largely because there is a widespread sense of unease among Pentagon leaders and commanders that accelerating the rate of the withdrawal could risk destabilizing the great gains in security that have been achieved over the past two years.

On Afghanistan, there appears to be a consensus between the Obama administration and the military that a combination of military reinforcement and a vigorous diplomatic initiative is necessary to stabilize the country.

However, military leaders warned that sending too many forces to Afghanistan would be a wrong signal in the eyes of the Afghans, who hope to see their own security forces take the lead.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2009)