The military leadership is proving to be a solid ally of President Obama in political Washington, adopting his social revolution and willing to serve as backdrops to the White House's campaign-style drive to win the budget battle with Republicans.
The Obama administration's public versions of events in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya have been riddled with discrepancies, starting soon after the American dead and survivors left behind a charred diplomatic compound and bullet-scarred CIA building in Benghazi.
Experts are questioning the level security for the Benghazi consulate and slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
As Navy SEALs bask in the limelight for daring missions, some in the Army are wondering whether the other half of the nation's counter-terrorism covert warriors — Delta Force — is being upstaged and left in the shadows.
The Sept. 11 attacks jolted the U.S. armed forces into a new era of war-fighting in which commando strikes, intelligence collection and manhunts often overshadowed heavy armor and big bombers of yesteryear's conflicts.
U.S. military and intelligence agencies would lose vital air, land and sea assets if Egypt falls into the hands of radical Islamists, as Iran did in 1979, foreign policy analysts say.
