West Point cadets go forth to serve

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc...NEWS/705270339

By Greg Bruno
Times Herald-Record
May 27, 2007

West Point - Terror more devastating than 9/11 could visit American shores if the United States abandons Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney told graduates of the U.S. Military Academy yesterday.

More than four years after toppling Saddam Hussein, Iraq has become terror's staging ground, he said.

"We are there because, having removed Saddam Hussein, we promised not to allow another dictator to rise in his place," Cheney said.

"By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear. And now they have chosen to make Iraq the central front in their war against civilization."

Cheney spoke to the 978 members of the Class of 2007 under blue skies and calm winds. An estimated 20,000 people looked on from the stands of the Academy's football stadium.

Those graduating represented about three-quarters of the cadets who entered as freshmen nearly four years ago. Ten graduates were from Orange, Sullivan and Ulster counties.

For graduates yesterday, the focus was on the immediate future. Dominick Falcon, 23, of Omaha, Neb., stared into the crowd as the ceremony came to a close. He was looking for his family and his fiancée, a local girl he was to marry yesterday evening.

"Blessed," he said. "I really do feel blessed. Words can't describe how I'm feeling."

But for the civilian and military leaders here, attention had already turned to the mission awaiting the newly pinned second lieutenants.

The class of 2007 arrived at West Point in June 2003, a mere three months after American forces invaded Iraq. Troops have been there ever since.

"It is rare in West Point history for a class to join during wartime, and to graduate in the midst of that same war," Cheney said. "But this, too, is part of the story of the Class of 2007."

Superintendent Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck added, "It will not be technology that settles this current conflict. It is you and your soldiers who will win this war for us."

Outside the military academy's gates yesterday, hundreds of anti-war and pro-war demonstrators traded verbal barbs.

It was a smaller repeat of Wednesday, when hundreds of protesters clogged the streets of downtown New London, Conn., where President Bush spoke to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Cheney yesterday touched on many of the same themes Bush focused on earlier this week.

That speech outlined newly declassified intelligence about al-Qaida's determination to strike targets in the United States. Cheney offered no new details.

He did, however, address the current funding issues surrounding the war.

"Whatever lies ahead, the United States Army will have all the equipment, supplies, manpower, training and support essential to victory," Cheney promised.

"I give you this assurance on behalf of the president: You soldier for him, and he will soldier for you."

The last time Cheney was at West Point, 20 months after 9/11, his entire talk was about the war on terror and building a faster, leaner military to fight it.

Four years later, Cheney was again defending American intervention in Iraq, and warning of the consequences of complacency.

"We're fighting a war on terror because the enemy attacked us first, and hit us hard," Cheney said. "Scarcely 50 miles from this place, we saw thousands of our fellow citizens murdered, and 16 acres of a great city turned to ashes."

"And they are scenes the enemy would like to see played out in this country over and over, on a larger and larger scale. We know that they are looking for ways of doing just that."