Biden Says End To Wars Gives US New Flexibility

Vice President Joe Biden told graduating cadets at West Point that the United States is able to focus on new
global challenges after a decade of war.

Biden addressed the 972 U.S. Military Academy cadets in a ceremony Saturday morning. He said a nation emerging from a decade of war has greater flexibility.

Biden's election-year commencement speech at the storied military academy echoed themes struck by President Barack Obama at the U.S. Air Force Academy on Wednesday. Obama said they were the first class in nearly a decade to graduate into a world that has no Osama bin Laden, no war in Iraq and no questions about when the war in Afghanistan will end.

NATO allies this week affirmed that the war in Afghanistan will end in 2014.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)