[_vk_]

Not so. The crossrange capability was driven by the abort scenarios.

http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/001340.html http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4998.0

[semi-extrinsic]

This is where I got the info: http://space.stackexchange.com/a/1400

Your sources seem more credible, but it's (obviously) hard to get concrete facts on military applications of the shuttle.