These are not easy times to be part of our armed forces,” said Hagel in the video.

Homeland Security Chairman McCaul said Sunday he was skeptical of Obama’s claim that al Qaeda was on the run. 

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Sunday that President Obama’s recent national security speech was too infused with “moral anguish” and "offended" him.

Paul called Obama's recent speech a step in the right direction, but said he still held concerns about drone policy.

Two key senators said Sunday the military still had much more to do when it comes to battling sexual assault.

“At a time we need resolve the most, we’re sounding retreat,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“This scourge must be stamped out. We’re all accountable for ensuring that this happens,” Hagel told West Point graduates.

President Obama’s new directive to seek to avoid civilian casualties with drone strikes is subjecting the use of drones to the “highest possible standard,” a White House national security official said Friday.

Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said in an interview with MSNBC that the president’s new drone policies went as far as they could to avoid civilian casualties by requiring “near certainty” that civilians would not be hit in a strike.

Obama announced in a major national security speech Thursday he was curbing drone strikes abroad by applying stricter standards and using them only when there is a “continuing and imminent threat.”

A massive Taliban attack on Afghan government facilities inside Kabul is the latest instance of insurgents bringing the fight to the capital in the final fighting season for U.S. forces in country.

The attack began Friday when a car bomb detonated in front of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an international group affiliated with the United Nations, in downtown Kabul.

After the explosion, which killed on Afghan police officer and injured 10, Taliban gunmen and Afghan security forces engaged in a nearly five-hour gun battle in the streets of the Afghan capital.