Obama to address West Point

President Barack Obama will give a commencement address
Saturday at West Point, just five months after visiting the academy to announce
he was sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama is expected to talk about the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq in his address to the academy’s class of 2010, most of who would be
expected to serve in those conflicts.

About 1,000 cadets are in the graduating class.

{mosads}The speech comes as a congressional debate over funding the
war in Afghanistan begins to take shape. The Senate hopes to approve a
supplemental war-funding bill before leaving for the Memorial Day recess, with
the House taking up the legislation after the Senate.

The House vote will be complicated by opposition to the war
effort from liberal Democrats, who are wary of continuing the engagement in
Afghanistan.

Hoping to win Democratic votes, the administration and
Senate Democrats are adding a $23 billion fund to the bill that would help
state and local governments stave off teacher layoffs.

Republicans in the House say the addition of that fund could
lead them to vote against the Afghanistan supplemental bill, but Democrats hope
it would win the bill support from liberal members of their party.

In December, Obama chose the academy as the place to
announce his decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. He also
said those troops would begin to return home 18 months after their arrival.

“These are the resources that we need to seize the
initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible
transition of our forces out of Afghanistan,” Obama said at the time.