I have been away from these boards for a while, and I see that the Iraq debate(s) are burbling along just as they were when I was here last.
So, here is a topic for debate: I personally think the war justified, but not for the reasons initially cited; and I further think that the Bush administration would have been better advised to have stated what I am assuming were their real reasons for war. Does anyone on either side of the debate agree with that?
Here is my version of what Powell’s UN speech ought to have been, if I were in charge: 
"Yo, listen up dudes. I’m only gonna say this once.
People have been asking questions about why we are leaning on Iraq; and why now, and not before.
The answer is really very simple. We have long been disgusted by the level of incompetence, untrustworthyness, psychotic government, and general ill-will towards us displayed by the corrupt dictators that infest the mid-east. During the cold war, we were willing to tolerate, even to cultivate them, because frankly we had other more important things to worry about. Even after the cold war, we restrained ourselves to hammering them only when they got totally out of line, like in that Iraq-Kuwait nonsense.
But that was because we thought that their insanity would not really affect us. Let 'em screw each other over - we had no desire to police them for their own good; we knew full well we would get only grief for it.
Unfortunately, our restraint was interpreted as weakness and vacillation. This encouraged said dictators to further and worse outrages. They continued to fund terrorists of various stripes (some of whom we funded ourselves in the past, to annoy the Soviets, but whom we now wished to go away), to (we suspect) attempt to secretly collect WMDs, and to defy all efforts of control.
Once again, we couldn’t really be bothered, because they mostly oppressed their own people or others in the region. However, all that changed on 9/11.
Now look, we don’t to be honest understand why the f*ck Al-Queda did that; and frankly, we don’t care. Nor do we know for sure that Iraq was behind them - probably not. But that doesn’t matter in the least. The fact is, the general anarchy in the region, the governmental encouragement of Al-Queda and other nutso groups like them, and the hostility displayed towards us - combined with contempt for our power - has got to stop.
Because it is now obvious that it does, in fact, potentially affect us.
Iraq is a prime example of all of these problems. They openly defy the UN; they openly fund terrorists, paying “martyrs” a bonus; they have been to war under the current dictator against two neighbouring countries; they have used WMDs on their own people. Saddam and his sons are total wacky psychos, who kill, rape and pillage their own people with a will.
In other words, they will do for a start; you gotta start somewhere. The rest of you ME dictators, take careful notes: if you don’t shape up, restrict your anarchic troubles to your own countries, and earn our trust, we will come and kick your ass. Cleaning up your shithole countries, and giving your people decent governments, would be a nice side-effect.
As for you, UN, Saddam and sons are playing you like a fiddle and will do so until doomsday. We aren’t playing that game any more - we don’t give a shit about inspections. We would rather not spend billions of dollars and scores of our soldiers’ lives kicking Saddam’s ass, but quite frankly, the upside in terms of encouraging the others to fall in line may in fact be worth it - so he better start kissing our ass now, and work that tounge
right in, because otherwise his days are surely numbered.
Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen."