Justification for Iraq War

In the face of the report details yesterday that the Carnegie group says Iraq had no weapons program except on paper and that we'd pretty much annihilated their efforts with the first Gulf War, I've heard almost non-stop interviews of Colin Powell in which few tough questions were asked, while he was allowed to say again and again that the decision to go to war was correct and that he stands behind what he told the UN Security Counsel.

Just now, I looked at CNN's "unscientific" poll, with about 120,000 respondents so far, with results showing that just 54% currently believe war with Iraq was unjustified since they [apparently] had no weapons program. This obviously leaves 46% of that poll's respondents believing it was justified even without WMD.

All the revisions on the issue aside, again and again WMDs were given as the core rationale for going to war with Iraq. The "seeking Democracy" and other spins were late excuses - and even those haven't panned out. David Kay, the man who promised us all throughout spring and summer that we were going to be dazzled with the results of his personally led search for WMD, failed to find or report anything and, over Christmas while only 3 people were paying attention, Mr. Kay resigned.

We've spent hundreds of millions just on the so-called search alone (and some $400 million more has been requested for the search's continuance), billions on the war (and many billions more on the so-called reconstruction), hundreds of American and coalition soldier lives, more than a dozen journalists (and many of these dead from specific, documented US action), dozens of civilian US contractor lives, and thousands of Iraqi lives.

For that, we have instability in much of Iraq, whole villages and cities barb-wired shut so that no one can get in or out, our armed services are severely strained, we're closing schools for 1 or 2 days a week here so we can finance rebuilding there, no democracy in operation there, and Rumsfeld and Company are busy continuing to award no-bid, sweetheart deals to Bechtel, Halliburton, et al.

Oh yeah, and while our troops are over there risking everything, the GOP and the Prez have been busy stripping military pay, education for the kids of military folks, hiding the wounded and the dead from public scrutiny,cutting veterans' benefits, letting the IRS and other government organizations go after the citizen soldier families on back taxes, medical bills, and other issues... the list goes on ad nauseum.

For you 46% who feel war was justified without the WMD, exactly what do you believe here? Aside from people who are either neocon in their mindset or those who work or make profits from the military industrail complex, I'm completely mystified.