I think that you are making an error in only focussing on the rhetoric of the actual request for a declaration of war and ignoring the rhetoric that for months led up to that declaration.
Many, many justifications were spun out in an attempt to drum up support for the war and only one stuck, so they went with that.
All my fight strategy is based on deliberately injuring my opponents. -
Crippled Avenger
"It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever get near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propoganda visits...Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecendented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him."
First you get good, then you get fast, then you get good and fast.