US: In one thing President George W. Bush has been absolutely consistent: he has stood by his war cabinet, defying calls to dump the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other hawks in the Pentagon and honouring the central figures in the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq despite criticisms of the conduct of the war.
Yesterday Mr Bush presented America's highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to former CIA director George Tenet, former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer and General Tommy Franks, all of whom have been blamed for missteps in US policy.
Mr Bush has made a point of declaring that Mr Rumsfeld will stay on, even as a majority of his first-term Cabinet members have been forced out or have resigned in the post-election shake-up.
While the president may wish to avoid seeming to admit a mistake over Iraq by firing the chief architect of the war, his loyalty to Mr Rumsfeld is being tested by calls for the dismissal of the 72- year-old Defence Secretary from within the Republican party.
Many Americans were outraged by Mr Rumsfeld's flippant remark to a soldier in Kuwait protesting about "hill-billy" armour on military vehicles, that he should know "you go to war with the army you've got".
Republican senator Mr John McCain said yesterday he had "no confidence" in Mr Rumsfeld over his handling of the war and Republican senator Mr Richard Lugar refused to express confidence in the Defence Secretary when asked on television at the weekend if he would do so.
In an AP interview, Mr McCain stopped short of calling for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation, saying that Mr Bush "can have the team that he wants around him", but he stated that the increasing flow of casualties from Iraq was not acceptable to the American people.
Mr Tenet left the CIA in July under a cloud after seven years as director. He was widely criticised for hyping up intelligence about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction to provide a pretext for ousting Saddam Hussein.
As the top American civilian in post-war Iraq, Mr Bremer made the decision to disband the Iraqi army, a move which critics say helped fuel the insurrection.
Gen Franks commanded US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and earned favour in the White House by endorsing Mr Bush's re-election in a speech at the Republican National Convention.
However he was regularly attacked by Democratic candidate Mr John Kerry for not sending US troops into Tora Bora when hunting for Osama Bin Laden, and possibly missing a chance to capture the al-Qaeda leader.
Mr Bush's attempts to complete his post-election team have run into a major problem with the withdrawal of the nomination of former New York police chief Mr Bernard Kerik as head of the Homeland Security Department.
Adding to the details of Mr Keriks's complex private life which have emerged in the media in recent days was the disclosure yesterday that he was married three times, not twice as he always claimed.
His first wife, Linda, whom he married in 1978 and divorced in 1983, is not mentioned in the 2001 book he wrote about his life.
Mr Bush also needs a UN ambassador, a new Environmental Protection Agency director and a replacement for the administrator of NASA, Mr Sean O'Keefe.
Meanwhile, Mr James Tobin, the former New England chairman of Mr Bush's re-election campaign until he resigned in October, was arraigned on four criminal charges on Monday relating to the jamming of state Democratic Party get-out-the-vote phone banks on election day in 2002.