The elite Special Operations Command has been in existence for twenty years, and on this anniversary, they're looking at some of the newest weapons in their arsenal at their base in Tampa.

For the first time, Navy commanders gave us a look at this sleek, experimental craft. The Sea Lion II, is designed to be almost invisible. It is just one of a string of high-tech weapons developed for SOCOM (Special Operations Command) as the Bush administration dramatically expands its role.

SOCOM is also fielding this raven unmanned surveillance drone and the first of 50 of these V-22 Ospreys. The Osprey will be sent its first combat mission later this year in Iraq along with a controversial safety record. Thirty have died in four Osprey crashes. It is one part plane, one part stomach-churning roller coaster.

Special operations include the elite Green Berets and Navy Seals.

Much of the command's work falls under the category of "black ops". The command is boosting troop levels from 48-thousand now to at least 55-thousand by 2013.

All this costs money. Funding for the command is exploding, from 3-point- 6 billion dollars in 2000, to a projected 6-point-1 billion in 2008. That 's without secret budgets or the emergency war-funding bills that have become routine.

By Thalia Hayden WCJB TV20 News.